STiR coffee and tea magazine

20 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 4, 2018 (August / September) Starbucks switches to strawless lids The new cold-cup lids will be standard for all iced drinks except Frappuccino, which will be served with a straw made from paper or PLA com- postable plastic manufactured from fermented plant starch or other sustain- able material, the company said. Customers who prefer or need a straw for any cold drink may ask for one made of alternative materials. CBTL Makes NYC Comeback The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, a coffee chain with more than 1,200 retail outlets around the world, announced in late June that it plans to open 100 new locations in New York City. The move comes amid speculation that Starbucks may be closing some of its shops there. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, based in Los Angeles, will partner with Hudson River Coffee & Tea to launch the New York City expansion. Some stores may open as early as this year. Already there are 311 stores in the United States. The New York initiative is part of a company plan to boost that total to 1,000 nationwide. "New York has always been an important market for us," said Coffee Bean vice president J.J. Smith. "Hudson River Coffee & Tea's successful track record and expertise in real estate development makes it the ideal franchisee to bring The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf to coffee and tea-loving New York City." "Our stores remain highly profitable and deliver an excellent return on capital," Whitbread c.e.o. Alison Brittain said, according to a BBC News report. "The UK like-for-like sales decline resulted principally from footfall weakness in traditional shopping locations, whereas travel locations continued to show good growth." Costa Coffee has more than 2,400 coffee shops in the United Kingdom as well as another 1,400 locations in 31 overseas markets. Whitbread acquired Costa on 1995 and is in the process of spinning the retail coffee giant into its own business entity. See: UK's Dynamic Coffee Market, pg. 34 US Starbucks Lid Replaces Straw Starbucks' global research & develop- ment division has designed a straw-less lid allowing the company to eliminate plastic straws by 2020. The company announced in July that it will begin the straw phaseout and new lids in Seattle and Vancouver, B.C., before rolling out the change-over at more than 28,000 stores around the world. The move fits with Starbucks' ongoing efforts to reduce waste and help protect the environment, a company spokesperson said in a statement. The change will eliminate more than one billion straws each year. "By nature, the straw isn't recyclable and the lid is, so we feel this decision is more sustainable and more socially responsible," said Chris Milne, Star- bucks' director of packaging sourcing. "Starbucks is finally drawing a line in the sand and creating a mold for other large brands to follow. We are raising the water line for what's acceptable and inspiring our peers to follow suit." The company cited a 2018 poll by Siena College Research Institute stating that 62% of New Yorkers consume coffee daily, and of coffee drinkers, 60% have more than one cup a day. Starbucks, meanwhile, has an- nounced that it will be closing 150 company-owned outlets this year across the United States. Analysts speculate many of those closures may occur in the New York City market. Coffee Bean c.e.o. John Fuller told CNN Money that Starbucks poses his company's primary competition in New York City and he's counting on what he calls "Starbucks fatigue." People want to see a change, he told CNN, and "that helps benefit us as well as other brands." VIETNAM Sustainability Effort Started A new coffee sustainability initiative designed to benefit 3,000 farmers in the coffee-rich central Highlands region of Vietnam has been launched. Louis Dreyfus Company (LDC), a merchant and processor of agricultural products, has partnered with Jacobs Douwe Egberts (JDE) and Syngenta to create the project. The goal is boost farmers' ability to combat climate change and improve the management of agrichemicals in Dak Lak, Dak Nong, and Gia Lai provinces. JDE is a global coffee and tea company. Syngenta is an agricultural solutions company. "We recognize that many problems are complex and may take years and the commitment of multiple stakeholders to resolve. But we are on the right path to do so," Do Ngoc Sy, JDE's sustainabil- ity manager for Asia Pacific, said in a company statement. About 95% of the country's coffee is produced in the Central Highlands, making Vietnam the world's second largest coffee exporter. With 596,000 coffee farmers, Vietnam exports about 1.4 million tons of coffee each year. Climate change, however, is reducing production and agrichemicals are affecting the soil and farmers' health. The goal of the three-year project is to train 3,000 farmers in sustainable farming practices. LDC agronomists also help farmers with crop diversification and climate resilience techniques. Costa is spinning off from Whitbread

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