SEATTLE -- Starbucks Corp. said nearly 7,000 employees, including some in Chicago, may lose their jobs due to a new round of store closures and cost cuts as it reported Wednesday that its profit dropped 69% in its fiscal first quarter, said the Associated Press. The company plans to close 300 underperforming stores, 200 in the United States and 100 internationally, by the end of the fiscal year in addition to the 600 U.S. stores it already planned to close. The company has already closed 384. The additional closures could result in the loss of 6,000 in-store jobs. Starbucks also [image-nocss] plans to lay off about 700 nonstore employees.
Starbucks will also stop continuously brewing decaffeinated coffee after noon as part of a drive to waste less and save $400 million by September, according to a Bloomberg report.
The company, which last year started brewing fresh pots of coffee every 30 minutes, will have the caffeine-free version available upon request after 12:00 p.m., the Seattle-based company said yesterday in an e-mail statement obtained by the news agency. It takes about four minutes for a fresh cup to brew, spokesperson Bridget Baker said.
"For many of our stores, the demand for decaf is greatly reduced in the afternoon," the company said in the statement. "With our current standard of continually brewing decaf after 12:00 p.m. regardless of demand, we have seen a high amount of waste."
The company informed baristas of the change earlier this week. CEO Howard Schultz is accelerating a cost-cutting plan to save $400 million by September from labor and product expenses. The plan includes brewing smaller pots of coffee so that less is wasted if it is not purchased within the 30-minute time limit.
Starbucks is also closing stores in the United States and Australia and trimming waste in other products, such as excess milk in lattes and cappuccinos.
Seattle-based Starbucks also said last week that Doubleshot Energy+Coffee beverages have become top performers in the ready-to-drink (RTD) energy coffee subcategory since launching in June 2008. Currently, the line represents three of the segment's five best-selling SKUs, according to data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI).
The North American Coffee Partnership (NACP), a joint venture between Starbucks Coffee Co. and PepsiCo Inc., has announced a new flavor of Doubleshot Energy+Coffee: Cinnamon Dulce.
Cinnamon Dulce combines the taste of cinnamon and vanilla with a blend of Starbucks coffee, B-vitamins, guarana and ginseng. It will begin rolling into grocery and convenience channels alongside existing Coffee, Mocha and Vanilla flavors in early February 2009.
Starbucks Doubleshot Energy+Coffee is available in a 15-fl.-oz. can for $2.59 suggested retail price at convenience, grocery, mass and drug stores nationwide.
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