Two stories this morning out of the Emerald City. First, the exhibit “Coffee: the World in Your Cup” reported on in the current issue of Barista Magazine opened at the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture. You can read about it here.
Secondly, Starbucks continues to flounder in this challenging economy, and reports state that the green giant will be laying off 1,000 employees from its corporate headquarters. It seems many of the steps taken by Howard Schultz since his return to the company last year to turn the company’s fortunes around haven’t been too successful.
I think this bullet point taken from the article may be quite illuminating as to why the company continues to struggle.
¢ Early on, Starbucks held a three-hour retraining session for store workers nationwide, showing them how to properly pour espresso and foam milk. Then, it decided that a key feature of the training ” pouring espresso into a clear shot glass to check quality ” was not crucial after all.
