The Latest Starbucks Innovation? Less Innovation

Coffee Conversations: Stuart Freedman on Photographing the Indian Coffee House

The photojournalist and author discusses his experiences capturing the essence of India’s oldest and largest coffee chain, as well as its legacy and importance as a resistance to brands like Starbucks.

This week's Roundup comes to you from Speyside, which is like California's wine country but for Scottish whisky. There are rolling hills and distilleries everywhere. It's very pretty. I don't drink, but there are worse places to spend a sunny bank holiday.

Anyway, here's what's been going on in coffee news:

The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has teamed up with the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) to implement its updated coffee evaluation standards, the Coffee Value Assessment (CVA). (There are a lot of acronyms involved.) Considering the size and importance of the FNC—Colombia is the world's third-largest coffee producer, and the FNC represents more than half a million farmers—this deal could help with the SCA’s push for wider industry adoption of the CVA.
Right behind Colombia in terms of coffee output is Indonesia, the world's fourth-largest producer. However, experts say that falling yields and increased domestic demand means the country could have to import more coffee than it exports over the next few years unless more is done to increase production.
Starbucks has long been a keen adopter of technological innovation—it has previously gone big on mobile ordering and consumer-facing loyalty apps (and who can forget its wildly successful move into the metaverse and NFTs?). But now, as it continues to struggle—even after new CEO Brian Niccol's "Back to Starbucks" campaign to make the company more like its old "third place" self—the company has decided that its next big innovation will be: less innovation. Niccol announced that Starbucks will pause rollout of its technology-heavy workflow platform Siren Craft System, and instead focus on hiring more baristas and staffing its stores better.

For more on all these stories, plus how coffee could help us as we age, check out the full Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

In case you missed it, why not check out this Q&A interview with Tony Konecny of Yes Plz Coffee about the importance of blends:

And paid subscribers received first access to my interview with photojournalist Stuart Freedman about the Indian Coffee House, featuring a few of the amazing photos from his book on the subject, The Palaces of Memory: