Way way back before the Starbucks Challenge even officially started, I tried to get a cup of fair trade coffee at the Starbucks on Hoover and Jefferson — The one hundreds of USC students go to every day. I got my damn coffee, but only after so much hassle and pushing on my part that I wrote the “One tall coffee for the fair trade bitch” post.

This was on Sept. 6, two months and 12 days ago, AFTER several emails to Starbucks complaining about the store’s fair trade failures.

How it all began: I emailed Starbucks’ main customer service email mid-August letting them know the store in question hadn’t brewed fair trade coffee in MONTHS (back then, stores were supposed to brew fair trade one day a month). In response, I got a form email on Aug. 20th with press-release info I already had, letting me know that stores brew fair trade “around the 20th of every month.”

So I sent an angrier email back, to get a more personal response (see bottom of post) on Sept. 4 that said Starbucks would arrange a phone call with the district manager for the store.

Christine, the district manager, did indeed email me on Sept. 23. She let me know that the Coffee of the Day program had been replaced with Coffee of the Week.

I emailed her back the same day to thank her for her response, and to let her know about my fair trade bitch experience. Christine wrote back on Sept. 25, said she “connected” with Bryce, the manager for the store near USC, to ask him to educate the baristas: “Bryce did ask me to give him a little time to communicate this policy to all of his team, as it’s over 35 partners,” she wrote.

So I held out, then dropped by the store today, Nov. 18, a week shy of 2 months since Christine’s email.

Barista1: We only have Cafe Verona right now — We only have one coffee brewing at a time.

Me: Oh, cuz I heard that Starbucks would French press…

Barista2: (interjects) Some stores do that. (to the girl standing behind me) Can I help you?

Barista1: Yeah, we just aren’t able do that because this store’s too busy.

And what does Christine think about this? I don’t know. Despite her invitation to “please let me know if I can be of any more help to you,” she hasn’t bothered to respond to my post-September emails, sent Oct. 5 and Oct. 24.

Filed in: starbuckschallenge coffee csr fair-trade fairtrade starbucks losangeles california

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