Starbucks Raises Price of Brewed Coffee Across the US
A cup of Starbucks coffee in the US just became a little more expensive, after the coffee shop franchise raised the prices on its menu.
The American coffee company and coffeehouse chain implemented a price increase on its brewed coffee between 10 cents up to 20 cents in almost all its company-owned branches in the US. According to USA Today, the price for one 12-ounce drink now has a $1.95 to $2.15 price tag.
However, the prices of most of the other beverage items on the menu from the popular coffee chain like its lattes, tea lattes, iced coffee, mochas, iced tea, cold brews, Nitros, as well as its Frappuccinos remain unchanged.
Get Our Latest News for FREE
The corporation's spokesperson Sanja Gould revealed in an email that the 1 percent to 2 percent price increase matches the current industry practices. It is also reportedly consistent with the food-away-from-home inflation that is currently between 2.2 percent to 2.4 percent.
"Evaluating prices periodically allows us to balance the need to run our business profitably, while continuing to provide value to our loyal customers and to attract new customers," Gould stated. "This price adjustment was not related to last week's store closures and trainings," the spokesperson added.
The store closure that Gould was referring to took place on May 29, after the Seattle-based coffeehouse chain decided not to open all its company-owned stores to spend the entire afternoon for a racial sensitivity training for all of its employees and partners after being accused of mistreating costumers of color.
According to a report from Delish, it is not the first time that Starbucks implemented a price increase. Back in September 2017, the coffee chain declared that prices of some of the items on its menu had been raised by up to 10 percent. This includes several espresso drinks, breakfast sandwiches, cookies, as well as brewed coffee.
Quo Vadis Capital president John Zolidis claimed that the price increase will not turn off their regular customers. He also believes that the sales that they will lose from costumers who believed that the price increase is not acceptable can be counterbalanced by the new higher prices.
"One of the great things about Starbucks' product is that it's habit-forming, so you've got a consumer that really needs their daily, weekly, hourly fix," he stated. "Twenty cents or 10 cents, some won't even notice," he went on to say.
However, netizens seemed to have a different reaction to the price increase.
The coffee chain's customers turned to Twitter to express their disappointment over the added expenses on their usual cup of coffee.
One of their customers complained about the higher price, as well as the lack of information about its implementation. "@Starbucks why did my Tall regular morning coffee go up 10% ? No one at the store seems to know "it's what the register rings up" ?? The Grande & Venti regular Coffee DID NOT go up. Zero notice of price increase + NO regular coffee prices displayed anywhere #Unacceptable," a customer angrily stated in a Twitter post.
Starbucks has yet to release another statement about the price increase and the claims of netizens that they did not announce it in the coming days.
