So I guess the sudden fair-trade-friendliness of my closest Starbucks was, indeed, an anomaly. Check out Jen’s and faboo’s comments. It’s still super tough to get a cup of fair trade coffee in Los Angeles.

As for answers to the questions in the letter to Starbucks: Cindy said she’ll get back to me about those “before Christmas.” Is that good news? Perhaps… Perhaps I should be grateful that the mermaid’s getting back to us at all…

Of course, I don’t think that the fact this challenge has dragged out for over 2 months is Cindy’s fault — I mean, it’s very possible that she wants answers as much as I do. Maybe she’s trying desparately to navigate the red tape in her company.

But one thing’s for certain: Starbucks has become a large, unwieldly, slow-moving bureaucracy. The behemoth corp’s moving further and further away from its mission to “develop enthusiastically satisfied customers all of the time.”

Clearly, this hasn’t been a priority. The focus, instead, seems to have fallen on this mission: “Recognize that profitability is essential to our future success.” Net revenues are up 20 percent this fiscal year. Net earnings are up 27 percent.

Does it really take over 2 months for the mermaid to figure out what to do about educating its baristas about its own long-touted fair trade policies?

I mean, Starbucks can simply just choose to sit tight till challengers hit all the stores and reeducate their baristas for it. Why spend the money and effort at doing it itself, when there are Christmas blends to sell?

And by saying “before Christmas,” the mermaid takes away the impetus from the letter deadline (Dec. 16) without actually doing anything. The way things are dragging on, I get the feeling Starbucks is just waiting for us Challengers to lose steam, pacifying us with promises of “soon, soon.”

Cindy — We’d really, really love to hear from you before Dec. 16.

Filed in: starbuckschallenge coffee csr fairtrade starbucks

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