Poor Farmer

"We are here to turn the page of the misunderstandings, for a new beginning," said Howard Shultz, chairman of the US coffee shop chain after having signed a coffee distribution and marketing deal with the Ethiopian government. - AFP Photo: Courtesy of AFP Starbucks to Build Ethiopian Farmers' Centre AFP November 28, 2007 US coffee giant Starbucks on Wednesday announced plans to build a support centre for Ethiopian coffee farmers, claiming an end to a long-running dispute with the East African country. "We are here to turn the page of the misunderstandings, for a new beginning," said Howard Shultz, chairman of the US coffee shop chain. He was speaking after having signed a coffee distribution and marketing deal with the Ethiopian government. "This is a real commitment to work side by side with the coffee farmers of Ethiopia," he added. Starbucks plans to build next year a center in Addis Ababa aimed to help farmers to raise the quality and production of...

By Tsegaye Tadesse Reuters November 28, 2007 ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Starbucks said on Wednesday it would open a support centre for coffee farmers in Ethiopia, which earlier this year clashed with the company over a bid to trademark its coffee beans. The world's largest coffee shop chain said it would open the centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia's capital, in 2008. The announcement was made in conjunction with a trip to Ethiopia by Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz. "The facility, the first in Africa, will enable Starbucks to work collaboratively with Ethiopian farmers to raise both the quality and production of the country's high-quality specialty coffees," Schultz said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. The centre "will provide resources and ongoing support to coffee communities with the goal of improving coffee quality and growing practices," Schultz added. Starbucks said it is also in talks with an Ethiopian apparel factory to ...

Ethiopian News Agency [Government Owned] November 23, 2007 (Addis Ababa) - A delegation led by owner and board chairman of Starbucks, a leading Coffee Company of the U.S, would visit Ethiopia as of the coming Wednesday, the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO) said. Trade mark director with the office, Wendwossen Belete told ENA on Friday that the delegation led by Howard Schultz would stay here for three days. Schultz is expected to hold discussions with high level Ethiopian government officials on various issues. Starbucks is the leading retailer, roaster and brand of specialty coffee in the world that recognized Ethiopia's ownership of its premium coffee brands. Howard Schultz is a businessman and entrepreneur most widely known as the Chairman and Chief Global Strategist of Starbucks. Schultz, who is founder Starbucks, has been chairman of the board and Chief Executive Officer of the company since its inception in 1987. ------- Ed's Note: To read a summary of the t...

TV Campaign Is Culture Shift For Starbucks By STEPHANIE KANG, JANET ADAMY and SUZANNE VRANICA The Wall Street Journal November 17, 2007 With more than 10,000 U.S. stores, and products in shops around the globe, Starbucks Corp. has built one of the world's best-known brands. Now, for the first time, it's rolling that brand out on national TV. The decision is a cultural turnabout for the coffee giant, which built itself into a global chain by harnessing word-of-mouth buzz. Starbucks's chairman, Howard Schultz, wrote a decade ago: "[B]y its very nature, national advertising fuels fears about ubiquity." Today, competitors McDonald's Corp. and Dunkin' Donuts, which never had any qualms about hawking their wares on the tube, are stepping up their coffee marketing. And Starbucks, after years of phenomenal success, is struggling to lure customers as the economy softens. The first batch of ads, which aired last night, is timed for the holidays and uses "anim...

By JANET ADAMY The Wall Street Journal November 16, 2007 Average customer traffic at Starbucks Corp.'s U.S. stores fell during the company's fourth quarter for the first time, a sign that the Seattle coffee giant is having difficulty attracting customers as it moves into the holiday season. The company reduced its earnings and same-store-sales-growth estimates for the coming year. Starbucks planned to launch its first national television-advertising campaign today. In an interview, Chief Executive Jim Donald called the campaign "a very culturally sensitive, product-driven" effort. He said Starbucks is getting into TV advertising because "as we grow our stores, we're trying to reach out to this broader audience that maybe [has] not had a chance to experience Starbucks." Chief Operating Officer Martin Coles said the ads highlight factors that differentiate Starbucks from rivals. The spots are part of Starbucks's holiday/winter campaign and feature ani...

The move could help the country's coffee growers to earn some $88 million more per year. By Matthew Clark The Christian Science Monitor Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia November 09, 2007 Nestled in the hills of southern Ethiopia lies a resource that could catapult this nation forward: coffee. Connoisseurs worldwide savor the beans from Yirgacheffe for their distinctive flavor. And at a time when more consumers are targeting specialty brews, Ethiopia is poised to reap the rewards of a product that commands $10 per pound in the United States. But while upscale consumers are willing to pay top dollar for the beans, farmers in Ethiopia sell their product for a pittance – less than $1 per pound. "It's like growers of Dom Perignon Champagne getting the same price as growers of bulk wine," says Ron Layton, founder and chief executive of Light Years, IP, a Washington-based group that helps producers in poor countries get better prices. But Ethiopia recently shook up the industry with a...

Classic cappuccino: Bar Italia, above, ‘makes coffee from the heart, rather than from a manual’ Photo: Courtesy of Telegraph Cappuccino wars have broken out on the high street after one of Britain's largest coffee retailers announced a steep rise in its prices. Patrick Sawer Telegraph November 04, 2007 Starbucks has put up the price of its lattes and cappuccinos by four per cent, more than twice the rate of inflation.Industry experts have warned that rival coffee outlets will inevitably follow suit.The price rise means that Starbucks' smallest cup of latte or cappuccino, the Tall, has breached the £2 barrier for the first time: it now costs £2.05. Starbucks' largest cappuccino and latte, the Venti, now costs £2.65 - an increase of 10p. It is the second time that Starbucks has raised prices since April, when a small cappuccino cost £1.89 and the Venti £2.25. The American chain, which has come to dominate the high-street coffee market since it arrived in the UK in 1998, blam...

Vices of coffee trade and coffee house: exploiting the growers, sleeping in Starbucks, quackery and gabbling Bee Wilson Times Online October 31, 2007 The film Black Gold begins with a horrible sound, a nasal rasp like pigs snorting at a trough. This sound is being made by a rare breed of American coffee tasters, slurping tiny tastes of hundreds of different espressos and giving them very precise ratings – 89.5/100, for example. These experts, who are nerdish and decadent all at once, are like the Robert Parkers of coffee. They seem to labour under the impression that their palates are brilliant computers, capable of distinguishing flavour within a micropercentage. One of the tasters stops slurping for a moment and turns to the camera. “There’s one coffee here that is probably the best coffee that I’ve ever tried. Beautiful!” Halfway through the film, we hear a different sound. It is the animal wail of a child in Sidamo, Ethiopia. She has been brought to a health clinic to be treated fo...