SEATTLE -- Starbucks has launched its new "everyday brew," Pike Place Roast, along with implementing new standards for freshness and sustainable coffee sourcing in all Starbucks company-operated stores. The move is intended to revive slumping U.S. sales, according to an Associated Press report.
The company said that this blend was created using input from Starbucks customers. Nearly 1,000 customers spent almost 1,500 hours providing input on what's important to them in a cup of coffee. Taking the wide range of customer preferences as a guide, this everyday brew is a blend featuring Starbucks [image-nocss] signature flavor with a smoother finish balanced by soft acidity and subtle, rich flavors of cocoa and toasted nuts.
The Pike Place Roast coffee beans will be hand-scooped, freshly ground, and freshly brewed and served, giving the coffee a consistent, pure taste, said the company. To further ensure customers enjoy the freshest, high-quality cup of brewed coffee, stores also will brew smaller batches with a hold time of no more than 30 minutes, it added. Licensed U.S. and international stores will also transition to a 30-minute hold time over the coming months.
The Pike Place Roast will be available alongside the traditional "Morning Pick."
Starbucks has spent the last few months sharpening its focus on the basics, a strategy Schultz is pushing as part of the company's efforts to reinvigorate its U.S. business, which has suffered amid a soft economy and growing competition from rivals ranging from McDonald's Corp. and Dunkin' Donuts to Peet's Coffee & Tea, Caribou Coffee and small, independent coffee shops, said AP.
Yet chairman, president and CEO Howard Schultz bristles at any suggestion that the company's turnaround efforts are aimed at the competition. "This is not about competition. This is about Starbucks," he told AP. "We believe that we control our own destiny, and our customers expect a quality from Starbucks that is unparalleled."
One night in late February, the company shut down most of its U.S. stores for three hours to retrain baristas on espresso basics.
Schultz has acknowledged that declining U.S. home prices, a widespread credit crunch and rising gasoline and energy costs have undoubtedly made many consumers pare back on affordable luxuries like $4 lattes. But he has repeatedly insisted that he believes Starbucks' bigger problem was that it focused too much on growth in recent years and not enough on customers and its core product.
The company has scaled back the number of new U.S. stores it plans to open this year, while ramping up growth overseas, and remains committed to a long-term goal of having 40,000 stores worldwide. It has about 16,000 stores worldwide today, more than two-thirds of them in the United States.
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