Thought this Starbucks Challenge was a new fangled thing? Think again. Fair trade advocates have been trying to get a lil fair trade coffee out of Starbucks for a long long tme — Read Derek’s Jan. 2004 report on Global Exchange’s website: “Walk into your neighborhood Starbucks and ask for a cup of freshly brewed ‘fair trade’ coffee. Chances are, you’re going to be out of luck, unless it’s the one day of the month (the 20th) that the company features fair trade brew as its ‘coffee of the day.’”
That coffee of the day program’s been phased out, by the way. Starbucks says they’ll brew Cafe Estima, the only fair trade certified blend offered in stores, 6 times in the year to come. We’re not sure what weeks that’ll be, but I hope it happens.
Derek asked, almost 2 years ago: “why is it so difficult to drink fair trade coffee at Starbucks, when the company is the world’s biggest coffee retailer and has posted 12 consecutive years of increased sales?”
Sound familiar?
Cuz I’ve been feeling a lil guilty about demanding speedier, more decisive action from Starbucks to remedy the “break down in customer service” the company’s admitted to.
Turns out these demands haven’t been speedy, AT ALL. Better documented perhaps, via the help of the blogosphere and del.icio.us. But the questions challengers have raised aren’t at all new, or recent.
They just haven’t been dealt with on Starbucks’ end.
Cindy, and the rest of Starbucks — We’re waiting. You’re in my StatCounter, so I know the last time you checked out green LA girl was at 8:21 pm this evening. You checked out the Tasting the Challenge post, and chose not to respond to our questions.
That’s OK — Starbucks’ CSR department has a lot on its plate. I, for one, would just like to know if the promised meetings with Starbucks’ communications and retail operations departments have taken place, and, if so, what Starbucks plans to do regarding the “break down in customer service.” Cuz, as all of us can tell from the recent Starbucks Challenge results, the emails sent out haven’t done shit in the US stores.
You have my cell number.
Filed in: starbuckschallenge coffee csr fair-trade fairtrade starbucks
Today’s the day .. I’m finally going to take the Starbucks challenge. I’ll blog about it this weekend. Promise.
I don’t care if Starbucks is busy. If they say they brew fair trade coffee upon request, they’re sort of obligated to do it, imo. If not, they need to come clean about the fact that they don’t actually brew FT coffee as advertised.
Comment by Stephanie — November 11, 2005 @ 11:32 am
Yey! Looking forward to hearing about the results :)
Comment by Siel — November 11, 2005 @ 11:10 pm