For Starbucks the Answer Was Simple
Coffee chain joins the masses looking to simplify their ingredients
By SAJID FAROOQ
Updated 1:00 PM PST, Wed, Oct 28, 2009
It wasn't beer that did it. Not even creating Fauxbucks or joing the app store made things better. Ultimately Starbucks realized simplicity was the best thing for the company as it tried to ride to deal with a fewer coffee drinkers come through its doors.
The coffee giant is joining hands with a list of large food retailers who are going into the new year chanting the mantra "simple is better," according to the USA Today.
What does that mean? Consumers want fewer ingredients in a bid to stay healthy. And it took Bay Area consumers shopping habits to tell corporate food makers want the nation wants. Haagen Dazs, which recently introduced a line of ice cream made up of a short list of ingredients and is being looked at as an example by companies such as Starbucks, did its research in San Francisco.
But the idea is not foreign to Starbucks, which began hearing five years ago that latte sippers wanted healthier foods to digest with their drinks, according to the USA Today.
Last year the coffee company sent a group of scientists to the lab to figure out how to improve the perceived quality of its current baked goods.
The scientists came up with something brilliant: they discovered how to cut the number of ingredients down. Take Starbucks' banana bread, for example, which had its ingredients list reduced from 15 to 10. How? Starbucks decided to use real bananas instead of banana flavoring.
Starbucks has also followed suit with some of its drinks, such as its smoothie line, which the paper reports is blended with only four items: milk, juice, banana and natural protein fiber powder.
If the solution to riding the struggling economic waves was so simple, why did Starbucks have to try so many different things?
First Published: Oct 28, 2009 12:51 PM PST
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