first, the venue: Starbucks-owned store on Battleground Avenue in Greensboro, NC (a typical conservative market by the way)

I went there together with a friend of mine; stepped in & asked for a CUP of fair trade coffee; I guess I was lucky enough to be “intercepted” by what looked to be the manager of the store (nice lady with a bit of a German accent – interesting); she replied quuite naturally, unsurprised, “yes, sure” and asked me what size I would like; I said “regular”…

after that a little bit of a whispering/elbowing/”the look” giving went on between the manager and the other baristas on site; my request must have certainly sounded kinda weird (or they knew about the “Challenge”?);

finally, the cashier wants to ring in my order, but she doesn’t know which button to press and asks the manager; the manager says “press Others”….and…..surprise, surprise: the register displays $3.58 for my REGULAR fair trade coffee!!

this is when it gets really interesting now: in the meantime my friend was looking for a coffee as well, and finally, he makes his choice; I ask the cashier for the 2nd coffee (a medium frappucino priced at cca $3.50) anddddddddddddd….oulalaaa! she charges me only $3.58 for both coffees!

I ask her if the price is ok, and she gives me a little troubled look, turned her head around to make sure the manager was not near or smth (at least that was my impression), and whispers hastily “yess, yess, it’s fine”; I have to add I’m not a regular customer of that store, I haven’t been there in 6 months or even more

then, when my coffee arrives (after beeing french pressed, obviously), I get another surprise…I’m given the whole pot-quantity!! I tell the guy that I only ordered a regular cup, but he responds that that’s how much coffee I get because that’s what the french press produces; I laughed and left

I really dunno what to think about the whole thing…is it the cashier incompetence who didn’t know how to ring the order? is it the register that didn’t have an option for ONE CUP of fair trade coffee? is it the misscommunication between the manager and her employees, as apparently she understood I was looking for a regular cup of coffee, but the other 2 (the cashier and the dude) didn’t? why did the cashier give me a free coffee, was it her personal decision because she felt bad for charging me so much for fair trade?? OR is it my irrestible look (yeah right, haha) that made her like me so much so as to give me an extra frappucino for free??

I admit I’m a little puzzled…what do you think???

Alotta — Lemme know how your trial run goes!

follower — Thanks for the kind words :) I do have to say though — unfortunately, it is NOT always the end customer who decides how much fair trade coffee’s to be produced. Meaning that many customers who feel a kinship with fair trade principles can often get either confused or swayed by Starbucks’ other marketing tactics — i.e. their CAFE practices.

I do agree with you though, in the sense that we customers can and should take more initiative to find out exactly where our money’s going, and refused to give our moolah to those companies that don’t measure up. I just hope that we’ll be able to at the very least preserve the consumer options (i.e. indie coffee shops) we still have –

I’ve accidentally ran into this blog, and have to admit I really got into it! I’m conducting a market reseach for a local specialty coffee shop, which strives to survive (even if there aren’t any starbucks around); thank you so much for all your postings and the indirect help.

I think the entire coffee industry should be benefitting greatly from your ‘heads-up’! and Starbucks in particular should be extremely thankful, after all, you’re providing them with extremely valuable (and otherwise awfully costly) market and operational data; it would have been really stupid from their part to miss this opportunity; no wonder they got involved

my biggest concern is this: with all the admirable efforts we put into this, it’s the end-costumer who decides, eventually, how much fair trade coffee is to be produced.. it’s as simple as it gets: if people don’t care about it, corps won’t care about it either; so, I guess my question is, what percentage of the U.S. population, for ex., look at (or even care about) how the coffee was purchased? is there a difference in regions (West, Midwest, Mid Atlantic, North East, etc)? because if that difference exists, we could emphasize the research in those particular areas

just some thoughts…

Namaste

Al