Demand for coffee is growing, and climate change threatens supply—yet consumers don’t want to pay more. In an intensified and unequal industry, however, someone always pays.
For paid subscribers: One of Howard Schultz’ final acts as Starbucks CEO was inflicting upon us a line of olive oil-infused coffee drinks. He was so confident the Oleato would change the world. It didn’t.
The coffee Starbucks news roundup returns. This week:
Starbucks launched its Pumpkin Spice Latte earlier than ever this year, a move Fortune puts down to an attempt to reverse the company’s flagging sales. PSL is the most autumn-coded drink imaginable, and this year’s launch date of August 22, you might have twigged, is the middle of summer. But as Fresh Cup has recently explored, the summerification of PSL is an ongoing trend.
Those aforementioned flagging sales prompted Starbucks to replace its CEO, and the new chief executive Brian Niccol has a pretty cushy gig: a $113 million pay packet and a 1,000 mile corporate jet supercommute from Niccol’s home in Newport Beach to Seattle. It’s fine though, because Starbucks is phasing out its disposable cups by 2030. Everything’s fine.
In non-Starbucks news, coffee was both good and bad for you this week—it was linked to increased skeletal muscle mass, but also to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
For all this and more, including a look at San Francisco’s roasting co-ops, read the full roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:
I'm a coffee writer and creator of The Pourover. Based in Scotland, I have over a decade of experience in the specialty coffee industry. Ask me about coffeewashing. It's pronounced Fin (he/him)
