Nov. 3, 2006 | This is another installment of the “Starbucks Mailbag” posting where I give a perspective on questions I’ve received about Starbucks strategies and decisions. 

Patty emailed me a question about the pastry offerings at Starbucks … “Beyond why aren’t the pastries as good as the coffee—why are the pastries awful?  Really, with all the wonderful artisan bakeries in every city; luscious scones, whole grain muffins, authentic croissants, Starbucks continues to offer overly sweet, utterly tasteless pastries."

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Patty, you bring a valid point.  The pastries Starbucks serves are not as good as the coffee it serves.  When I was at Starbucks, the mantra was, “Coffee is the core, but food is the opportunity.”  Improving its food offerings is something Starbucks has been trying to do for a long time.  It seems like now the company is more concerned with delivering consistency with its pastries from a store in California to a store in Connecticut than it is in delivering the best quality pastry.  There are many reasons for this.

As Starbucks gets bigger and bigger, they are “nationalizing” more and more of their pastry offerings.  You’ll find that many of the pastries served at Starbucks locations are of the “thaw and serve” variety.  An increasing number of pasties are air-shipped to Starbucks frozen and then are thawed at the store before being placed in the pastry counter.

Artisan and local bakeries have trouble meeting the day-in-day-out increasing demands of supplying Starbucks with fresh pastries. With Starbucks fast-paced growth, they have created a monster that artisan bakeries have difficulty feeding.

Starbucks would no doubt increase sales if they were able to make their pastry offerings more than merely satisfactory. However, as mentioned earlier, beverage is boss at Starbucks.  Since the company excels at preparing and selling coffee beverages, it is easier for Starbucks to impact sales by introducing new, higher-prices beverages than to overhaul its food program.

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.