Healthier food, bottom line for Starbucks?
STARBUCKS | Struggling coffee chain to unveil better-for-you breakfast menu
Starbucks is on the brink of rolling out a serious reinvention of its breakfast food.
Details of the chain's long-anticipated move into better-for-you food -- so hush-hush that it had its own code name, Morning Source -- will be unveiled Tuesday. It comes as Starbucks' U.S. stores are struggling with drops in traffic and comparable sales growth as many cash-strapped consumers hesitate to shell out $4 for their java fix.
Item Calories Fat (g) Fiber (g) Protein (g)
Apple bran muffin 330 8 7 7
Starbucks Power Protein Plate
(w/ peanut butter) 330 16 5 16
Starbucks Power Protein Plate
(w/o peanut butter) 260 9 4 13
Baked Berry Stella 280 9 6 6
Multigrain roll 280 6 6 7
Maple almond butter (1 T.) 100 8 2 3
Strawberry preserves 40 0 0 0
Chewy Fruit & Nut Bar 250 10 4 4
Perfect Oatmeal 140 2.5 4 5
The more nutrition-friendly food -- fewer calories, more protein, fiber and fruit -- will show up Sept. 3 on the breakfast menu at most of the 11,570 locations in the U.S. and Canada. Six new items include hot oatmeal, an energy bar and a whole-grain apple bran muffin with fruit pieces.
Starbucks plans to revamp its lunch and dinner menus, too, in 2009. The goal is to lure back core customers who are visiting its stores less often and spending less when they do.
"Food has been our Achilles' heel," says corporate founder and CEO Howard Schultz in an interview in his office. He calls better-for-you food, part of Starbucks' evolving health and wellness program, a "billion-dollar" idea. Says Schultz, "This is as big an initiative as anything we can do."
Even so, Starbucks is late to the better-for-you food trend. It's made modest efforts in recent years to bolster the nutritional value of its beverages and foods, such as removing trans fats and switching to 2 percent milk. But for the most part, the company has been content to sit back and rake in profits.
The effects of an ailing economy on its sales have left Starbucks little choice but to up the ante on food quality. The move also comes as more cities require fast-food chains to post nutrition information on menu boards.
This year has been a nightmare for Starbucks -- and for Schultz, who forcefully took back the CEO job in January. Since then, he's overseen closing 600 U.S. stores, laying off thousands of store and corporate staff, shuffling top management and scaling back domestic growth plans.
Still, Starbucks' stock is down nearly 25 percent this year. Schultz hopes better-for-you breakfast food targeted at its core customers breaks the bad-news cycle.
But Schultz, 55, concedes to a second driver for the menu upgrade: his own health.
During a physical exam last year, Shultz was strongly advised to lose weight and lower his cholesterol. He immediately replaced his usual breakfast at home of a bagel with butter and black coffee with a homemade protein shake. (He still drinks several Starbucks coffees daily, he says.)
He says the menu overhaul will give folks a chance to make "healthier" decisions inside -- not outside -- Starbucks.
Starbucks executives say it's about choices, which now will include better-for-you grub.
"One year from now, the entire food case will look different than it does today," says Michelle Gass, senior vice president over all Starbucks business categories.
Of 200 food items considered over two years, says Lesley Zavar, director of the food category, these six were selected: