History of Starbucks Coffee Company
The routes of the company’s reason for being go back to 1971, when three coffee fanatics – Gerald Baldwin, Gordon Bowker and Ziev Siegl – opened a small coffee shop in Seattle’s Pike Place Market.
The shop specialized in selling whole Arabica beans to a niche market of coffee purists.
Original the name of the company was Starbucks Coffee, Tea and Spices, but later changed to Starbucks Coffee Company.
At this time per capita coffee consumption in the U.S was in the decline and supermarket brands dominated the larger coffee market was dominated by supermarket brands.
When Howard Schultz first joined the marketing team of the company in 1982, Starbucks was already a highly respected local roaster and retailer of whole bean and ground coffees.
A business trip to Italy opened Schultz’s eyes to the rich tradition of the espresso beverage and espresso drinks became an essential element of Schultz vision.
Upon his return, he convinced the company to set up an espresso bar in the corner of its downtown Seattle shop to create a place where people could go to relax and enjoy others.
A few years later in 1987, Schultz got his chance when Starbucks’ founders agreed to sell him the company.
As soon as Shultz took over, he immediately began opening new stores. The stores sold whole beans and premium coffee beverages by the cup and catered primarily to affluent, well educated female between the ages of 25 and 44.
By 1992, the company had 140 such stores in the Northwest and Chicago and was successfully competing against other small scale coffee chains.
That same year Schultz decided to take the company public raising USD 25 million of the public offering to open more stores across the nation.
By 2002, Schultz had unequivocally established Starbucks as the dominant specialty coffee brand in North America.
Sales had climbed at a compound annual growth rate of 40% since the company had gone public, and net earnings had risen at a compound annual growth rate of 50%.
The company was now serving 20 million unique customers in well over 5,000 stores round the globe and was opening on average three new stores a day.
History of Starbucks Coffee Company
