The coffee scene in Dubai is thriving, and the city is set to welcome the Specialty Coffee Association’s World of Coffee event next month. But underneath the glitzy facade and marketing buzz lies a moral quagmire.
The co-founder of the chain Biggby Coffee talks about building a successful company with hundreds of franchised locations, only to switch to a new way of doing business—one that prioritises more than just growth and profit.
For paid subscribers: What Starbucks’ CEO Brian Niccol’s meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says about the company’s embrace of coffee’s wellness trend—and the trend’s darker side.
Last week, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol met with U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to discuss “the company’s plans to further MAHA its menu”, according to Kennedy’s post on Twitter.
MAHA stands for “make America healthy again”, and is the name given to Kennedy’s political campaign to supposedly re-orientate the United States’ health policy towards a more clean-living, wellness-inspired approach.
However Kennedy has a long history of pushing conspiracy theories and straight-up lies about a range of subjects from 5G to chemtrails, and a big part of MAHA is its opposition to the food and beverage industry’s political influence.
So why was Niccol meeting with him?
The co-founder of the chain Biggby Coffee talks about building a successful company with hundreds of franchised locations, only to switch to a new way of doing business—one that prioritises more than just growth and profit.
For paid subscribers: Blue Bottle used carbon offsets and a focus on “emissions intensity” to go carbon neutral, but its total emissions increased quite significantly. Should this "achievement" be celebrated?
Companies are turning to automation as a tool to fight back against industrial action. In coffee, that role could well be played by robot baristas—in fact, it sort of already has.
For paid subscribers: Today, Sweden is famous for its love of coffee. But historically that hasn’t always been the case, and one particular ruler’s attempts to prove coffee’s harmful health impacts may have been the world’s first randomised controlled trial.
A newsletter about coffee—its culture, politics, and how it connects to the wider world.
