The Downfall of Starbucks Coffee

            

Starbucks Coffee Company is the largest coffee chain in the world. Starbucks was originally founded in Seattle in 1971 but has since found its way to every corner of the globe. Employing over 350,000 partners, serving an average of 8 million Starbucks drinks a day (Leo Qin). I started working there in early 2019, I loved it, I loved the company. Unfortunately over the next three years working as a barista, I sadly watched as Starbucks unfortunately strayed away from its core values specifically regarding the treatment of its partners (employees) and sustainability.  

            The first aspect I’d like to talk about is the treatment of its employees. Starbucks calls their employees partners. Why? Because “We are all shared partners in shared success. We make sure everything we do is through the lens of humanity- from our commitment to the highest quality coffee in the world, to the way we engage with our customers and communities to do business responsibly” (Starbucks).  Reading that off their website, I feel a lot of irony based off what I’m about to discuss. Throughout my Starbucks career, I worked at three different locations and was very familiar with almost all stores in my district. Each store all had major staffing issues, which unfortunately isn’t just a problem in my district but worldwide. Of course, almost all businesses are struggling with staffing as a result of the global pandemic however this has always been a major problem for Starbucks, and I’ve experienced it first-hand at each store I’ve worked at.

Due to understaffing, partners like me, were often doing multiple roles or positions at a time. I often felt pushed to my limit and filled with stress and anxiety because we were short staffed during a shift and couldn’t keep up with customer demand. I would leave a shift absolutely drained mentally and physically from the lack of support I felt making 200+ drinks an hour as fast as I could to keep drive thru times down and customers from complaining. In addition to all that Starbucks prides itself for its customer service. Good customer service is obviously key to any good business however, we were expected to personally get to know each customer who walked through our door or came through our drive through. This wouldn’t be a bad tactic if Starbucks was a smaller company and we had the staff to have those engaging conversations. However, it is nearly impossible to get to know a customer when you have a million drink tickets, the oven is beeping, someone wants their drink remade, and were down to our last whipped cream can. You see what I mean? The push for customer connection was ridiculous when it was hard enough to run a shift without complete chaos. My manager was solely focused on the customer experience neglecting a good fair workplace environment for the employees. That’s why it is not shocking to me that 80% of Starbucks current employees have been there for under a year (QSR Magazine) and turnover rates are sky rocketing. I’ve lost track of how many people I’ve trained who worked for three months, get completely burnt out and quit. It is difficult to have a positive work environment without a strong team, with a constant change of staff this just adds to the problems.

            Another reason I think Starbucks is not as good of a company as they once where are because of their sustainability issues. This is an issue for me that really irked me while working for Starbucks because when you are employed by someone, you want to feel good about the company you are working for and representing. Starbucks’ marketing recently has centered a lot around “going green”, claiming to be a sustainable company and taking steps including a compostable gift card during Earth Day and selling plastic cups with the phrase “sip sustainably” on it. I’m here to tell you, this is all for show. These aren’t bad ideas they are just small and hypocritical. According to Green Peace, Starbucks itself has said the company distributes about 6 billion disposable cups worldwide each year most of which ends up in landfills.

With a company as big as Starbucks they need to do better. It’s not just cups, almost all of our product is made from plastic which isn’t recycled. My store had designated blue garbage bags for recyclables however I was always instructed to just throw it in the dumpster with everything else when we took it outside, it is all for show. As far as reusable cups go, ordering in the cafe with a reusable cup is great. However, when someone brings their reusable cup through the drive thru the sustainability benefit is gone. We are told to make the drink like normal in a normal single use plastic cup and then once the customer reaches the window and hands us their reusable cup, we then dump it into the reusable one and throw the plastic cup away, that way they’re not waiting for their drink and our drive times remain low. It is all for show. It’s not just plastic either, Starbucks wastes so much food and product every single day. We set out each food and bakery item in the pastry case every morning that isn’t to be sold, it just sits there all day and then is thrown away. Think about how much food every day is getting wasted worldwide just from that alone. Starbucks has a lot of responsibility as one of the largest well-known companies in the world, they should be setting an example in sustainability not catching up. 

            In conclusion, Starbucks Coffee Company is the largest coffee chain in the world but sadly is on its downfall because of the lack of sustainability and treatment of its employees.