State of Missouri vs Starbucks

Conflating Your Personal Brand With Your Coffee Brand is a Risky Strategy

For paid subscribers: Recent stories show the dangers of building too much of a coffee company’s image around its founder’s personality. When things go wrong, it can blow back on the brand.

The coffee news never sleeps–probably all that caffeine...

Here's a quick summary of what happened last week (read the whole thing at Fresh Cup Magazine):

Researchers are exploring how physical defects in green coffee–broken and chipped beans, insect damage, that sort of thing–affect the final coffee's flavour and aroma. "We want to understand how many green coffee beans of a physical defect have an actual perceptible effect on the cup", said Sebastian Opitz from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.
South Korea has an incredibly competitive coffee sector, with foreign chains and home-grown companies battling for a slice of the market. This has led to price wars in the past, but after the surge in the coffee futures market, at least one budget brand has decided to raise its prices.

I wrote about the Korean coffee market a couple of years ago:

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, a Republican, is suing Starbucks because of its diversity, equity, and inclusion policies. Among other things, the lawsuit alleges that Starbucks' hiring practices led to "systemic racial, sexual, and sexual orientation discrimination" because of a tiny change in its workforce demographics over four years. It's all a bit silly (and typo-ridden). Starbucks called the claims "inaccurate" and defended its hiring practices.

For more on all these stories, as well as allegations of a toxic workplace at Colectivo Coffee, check out the full Roundup over at Fresh Cup Magazine:

If you missed it, why not check out my latest article, a deep dive into all the ways the chaotic last few week's in U.S. politics has impacted–and will continue to impact–the coffee industry: