Of my last 100 pageloads, 30 are from Starbucks. And I just got an email from Cindy, who works in Starbucks’ Corporate Social Responsibility department.
Tried calling her a few times, but got a busy signal. So I sent her an email and am waiting to hear back.
In the meantime, if you have Q’s regarding Starbucks or any of their policies, fair trade or otherwise, let me know ASAP and I’ll add them to my own list of Qs –
**Update, 10/8/05: Cindy emailed back — We’re planning to chat on Monday.
love your blog; very cool concept, great design.
Comment by KOB — October 7, 2005 @ 8:07 pm
You should do a post about the Nestle thing over in England. I also like your blog very much.
Comment by Steve — October 8, 2005 @ 6:47 am
Hello complimenters — Thanks for the kind words :) BTW — I did do a pre-fair-trade coffee launch about Nestle a few days back — I’m planning to investigate this more though — fair trade as done by large, not-so-ethical corporations vs. fair trade done on a grassroots level by small companies –
Comment by Siel — October 8, 2005 @ 10:55 am
just curious – did you notify starbucks about this project beforehand, or did they just stumble upon it on their own?
interesting.. I can’t wait to hear about your conversation!
Comment by Pippa — October 8, 2005 @ 6:45 pm
Hey Pippa — No — I didn’t tell Starbucks about the challenge, though I’ve been in communication before, to ask them questions I had about Starbucks’ policies. I sent several emails to their “info” address avaliable via Starbucks’ website, and I’ve communicated a couple times with Christine, district manager for the Starbucks near USC.
In all the communications, I included my blog URL in the footer — to make sure that they knew I wasn’t making any secret of the fact that fair trade is an important issue for me — and that I was publicizing my interests via the WWW. Their response to my emails, however, have been somewhat lukewarm — Christine told me to call their main 800# for more details, for example — Which I did — The call only added to my confusion.
I don’t wanna “attack” any of the baristas, the phone center customer reps, or even the district managers, as I believe these people are often pretty low down on the totem pole themselves and, usually, not “responsible” for the problems in Starbucks’ chain of command (See Meg’s comments, for example). But I’m hoping I can start to get some answers and start a real communication, now that Cindy has taken the initiative to communicate with me.
Comment by Siel — October 8, 2005 @ 7:28 pm
That’s awesome! Maybe some folks at head office have heard the word on the street. (Remember when several Starbucks were targeted at the anti-globalization protests?) If I were Starbucks, I’d be sending memos out to remind everyone about their policy. Hopefully this is a step in that direction. In fact, if I worked for Starbucks, this fair trade policy is exactly the kind of thing that would make me feel good about working there and maybe save a few windows in the process.
Comment by Dread Pirate Robert — October 9, 2005 @ 9:24 am
Hey DP Roberts — You were so right on about Starbucks sending out a memo — Though this one looks like it had been in the works for quite some time.
Doesn’t mention its store policy to French press cups of fair trade coffee though. I wonder why –
Comment by Siel — October 10, 2005 @ 5:41 pm