Page 77 - The Starbucks Experience

PRINCIPLE 2

out high-grade coffee beans, Starbucks is incapable of bring-
ing high-quality coffee to the cups of its customers. Accord-
ing to Dub Hay, senior vice president of Coffee and Global
Procurement,
It is a very detailed process that we consistently go
through. When we go to origin countries, we don’t buy
coffee on farms. When we go to farms, we are there to
look at their trees. We may taste coffee at the farm, but
we never buy it there; we only buy it once we are able
to take coffee back into conditions that we can control,
and that are always the same. We can examine it, sam-
ple it, resample it, and compare it with other coffees we
think are interesting.

In addition to the coffee itself, many seemingly unrelated
62 details are considered, all of which contribute to the coffee’s
current and future quality. It is not enough for experts in the
Coffee Department to find a great-tasting coffee at a spe-
cific farm. They have to know that high-quality coffee will
be available from that farm well into the future and that
the business practices of the supplier will fit with Starbucks
values. While many business leaders may convince them-
selves that they are not responsible for the actions of their
suppliers, Starbucks leadership sees this distinction as
very shortsighted.
As Dub explains, “The quality of the coffee is not enough.
We want to know about the quality of the people with whom
we do business. We want to know about their integrity and
their commitment to future excellence. To that end, we look
for the health of the farms. We pay attention to how the
farmers treat the environment. We look at how they treat the
social conditions on the farm. What’s the altitude? What’s the