It’s been a while since I wrote about food and retail, an area that I still like (and actually find much more interesting than tech or simple business), but which I’ve put on the backburner for now. I don’t like Starbucks as a business nor as a coffee, for a number of reasons that I will elaborate on in this post, but I do like that the company, back under the helm of Schultz, is undertaking some new initiatives.

Reasons why Starbucks bothers me include, most of all, that it is not a coffeeshop with a European target-audience. We Europeans have plenty of choice and tradition in terms of coffee, and I have no problem finding a place of atmosphere with some kickin’ coffee at half the price of one of those Americanos (which, btw. taste terrible). The only attraction of Starbucks is for me as a take-away place, but that was not really the aim of the business, as described in Schultz’s book.

Starbucks was meant to be a “3rd Place,” a place where people can temporarily reside that is not their office or their home, and that is where Starbucks, in my opinion, fails. It should also not seen in isolation from other chains, like McDonalds, Subways, and the many “CloneBucks’s” that have arisen since the writing of Schultz’s book—it is basically a manual for how to start your very own Starbucks and, apart from its partnerships, it’s a low-tech business. Right now, when you enter a Starbucks in say, Cologne, Germany, it will look exactly the same as the one in Paris, France, and that act of replication already devalues the concept in my eyes. All Starbucks Cafés are very clean-looking, unlike a Hard Rock Café for instance, which doesn’t make them all that much better than a McDonalds (Café), which serves coffee equally well.

End complaints about Starbucks, a chain I had all but given up on.

The most depressing part of this business is the ease at which McDonalds managed to replicate its basic features, ……… but let’s not forget that the Starbucks people aren’t stupid and learning goes both ways. Clearly, McDonalds (another business, I’m a fan of) has strong process-advantages, which are also quite apparent to the observer and can be benefitted from by outsiders. Something that, it turns out, Starbucks exploited and will hopefully lead to a more efficient machine of a business, while (hopefully) placing the focus back on the “3rd Place” idea.

And now, it has been revealed, Starbucks is trying to get back into that game with its “community coffeeshops initiative.” While I don’t think that this will drastically improve the Starbucks offering, I do hope that it allows for more creativity and individuality down the road.

That said, there is still a lot of room for “3rd Places,” also in terms of building chains of them, they just need to be better designed to actually be a 3rd place. From books, to music, to zen-gardens, people like me are still looking for the equivalent of what was before probably known as the “gentlemen’s club,” by I mean, in an entirely un-sexist way, a place where you can go and relax, alone or with friends.

Starbucks seems to have gotten lost on the path and retreated down to the level of commoditization. It make me wonder if perhaps these types of qualitative initiatives simply cannot be undertaken quantitatively, without losing too much in the process.

Vincent

Well, I don’t want to be culturally insensitive…

We, the Tech IT Easy crew of new and old, wish all of you innocent internet bystanders a happy and joyful [insert your celebration here] and hope to see you back here with slightly rounder stomachs and at least a new gadget or two.

L♥ve
The Tech IT Easy crew

I think that for every health-nut like me, there’s about 8-9 people that don’t care. Of course, they start caring as soon as the doctor tells them they have to, but that’s another story…

One benefit (and frustration) of health-nuttiness is that you start paying attention to a lot of publications about what’s good for you. Often, way-way-way before these things are actually implemented on a massive scale across society (very similar to early adopter syndrome in technology, actually), influenced by mass-media-attention, industry-adoption, and insurers-approval (the big brother of the health industry).

To that effect, a number of health-”innovations” have become mainstreamed, namely:

• Vitamine-supplements in your food
• The use of vegetable oil in (fast-food) restaurants
• (Larger) salads in fast-food restaurants (qu’elle innovation!)
• Omega-3 supplements in your food

The latter is actually kind of interesting, because for years now scientists have noticed a shortage of Omega-3 (aka. Fish Oil) in Western diets and the correlation with heart disease, cancer, arthritis, allergies and other chronic diseases, as well as, less published, depression. Yes, there are therapies against depression that involve significant daily intakes of Omega-3. No doubt, that isn’t the main reason that we now see Omega-3 in nearly every fatty dairy product in supermarket, but nevertheless it is a victory for both science, mankind, and their brains.

Does the need for food-innovation end here? Far from it, read a few health-mags and go travel the sandwich-shops, Starbucks, and all the other places that busy people (over 50% of our adult population) frequent on a daily basis (not to mention school cafeterias!). You’ll see that there’s a predominance of simple carbohydrates (white bread, rice, and pasta, rather than their healthier wholemeal counterparts), greasy meat snacks (with very little in protein-based vegetarian alternatives), and, of course just plain sugar (from soft-drinks to chocolate-bars).

If you read about the rise of McDonalds, you’ll know that in a large part its low priced success is attributed to using inferior ingredients. Even now, I think that any sane entrepreneur in the catering industry will automatically reach for those same ingredients, because there is simply too little awareness of (or caring about) better alternatives. There continues to, of course, be a micro-movement of people—those same people that buy so-called biofood at a significant premium, not to mention (alternative) scientists—that push for better, more responsible food-production. And there is no doubt, enough media-attention about a number of health-problems and how they could be solved. So much so, that, apart from the cost-factor, I do wonder why many of these simple innovations (like whole-grain hamburgers, for instance) aren’t yet here.

Perhaps we just need to shout louder!? Perhaps… I think I will finish that thought of how to encourage “revolutions” in not only health, but also other areas like green innovation, in a future blogpost!

Vincent