Things you may not know about Starbucks!
You may already know that more and more companies are trying to reduce their food waste and garbage in general. Food waste is a huge problem in the United States and restaurants like Starbucks all share the same issues.
To fully understand Starbucks plans to do more to combat waste, we need to understand where Starbucks gets their food, what they actually do with their leftover food, what they do with their leftover coffee and coffee grounds, and if Starbucks is recycle friendly.
Where does Starbucks food come from?
All of the food sold at Starbucks is made by other companies. None of the food that they serve is actually made in store.
The employees at Starbucks are really just food handlers that may heat up a breakfast sandwich, but they don’t actually make them.
Most of the food including the sandwiches at Starbucks actually come from Premium Brands Holdings Corp, which is a food manufacturer that contracts with Starbucks almost exclusively.
Some of the smaller items like the cake pops and pastries actually come from a Starbucks owned bakery called La Boulange. Some commercial bakers even make Starbucks food in different locations using the La Boulange recipes but use locally sourced food from farms.
This is why some locations make have certain pastry flavors and ingredients that not every Starbucks location has available.
The pastries are typically baked fresh and then most are frozen before it is shipped to each of the stores. They have to be frozen because they try not use any additional preservatives that can prolong the expiration dates.
Once the sandwiches and pastries are in the Starbucks stores, they are defrosted, heated, and then served to the customers. Since Starbucks does not really make any of their own food within the stores, they don’t need as much kitchen space as other restaurants that serve breakfast.
Most of their prepackaged food is delivered to the stores every couple of days. The use of prepackaged food is also why you can’t make changes or substitutions to Starbucks food like you can at other places.
According to a former employee, the only real modification they can do is remove a piece of the sandwich like the cheese. There is no way for them to truly customize your sandwich.
What does Starbucks do with their leftover food?
Starbucks wants you to believe that they donate all of their unsold food to keep it out of landfills. They tout huge numbers on their website, like 49.7 million pounds of food diverted from waste streams and 41.4 million meals donated with their hunger relief progam.
Unfortunately, most of the food that is leftover at the end of the day at Starbucks actually gets thrown in the trash. Even though they may want to donate food, it isn’t always possible.
One of the main reasons for this is simply because the food banks and hunger relief partners that they work with only come by to pick up food once a week.
According to Feeding America, Food banks don’t always have enough refrigerated space to hold all the leftover food, and anything already heated up or out on display always gets tossed.
Now it would make sense for Starbucks to let their employees take home some of this food instead of throwing it out, but they have strict rules against it. Starbucks would actually rather trash the food then give it to their employees to eat.
Depending on the Manager or District Manager, any employee caught eating or taking home food that is meant to be thrown away can actually get written up. Seems crazy to me that a company like Starbucks is all about donating food to those that need it, but not to their employees.
What does Starbucks do with their leftover coffee and coffee grounds?
Now everyone knows that the main reason to go to Starbucks is not for the food, it is for the coffee. At any given moment, an employee is making a new batch of coffee all day long.
Any coffee that is brewed and not sold to a customer is poured down the drain after 2 hours. According to Healthline, brewed coffee can be safely consumed for 3-4 days. It probably won’t taste the same as when it is first brewed, but it won’t hurt you.
If you want to keep brewed coffee at home to use later like in marinades or baked goods, just keep it in a sealed container in the fridge. Just make sure that it is black coffee and has not had milk or creamer added to yet.
With all the coffee brewing going on at Starbucks, they have to end up with a massive amount of used coffee grounds. What do they do with it?
Every time an employee changes out the ground coffee, they bag up the used coffee grounds. Each location usually has a basket in their cafe area where they put these bags of used grounds.
Anyone who wants the used coffee grounds is free to take as much of the bags as they want. So local gardeners and anyone else can save a ton of money by getting grounds for free at Starbucks if they don’t drink enough coffee at home.
Not only are coffee grounds used in gardening, but they can also be used to neutralize odors, repels insects/pests, and they are even used in skin care products!
If you want more information on frugal gardening, check out “Frugal Gardening and Upcycling Projects” for tips, tricks, and ideas for gardening on a budget!
Does Starbucks really recycle?
Now not all waste from retailers is food related, some is in the form of physical things. Starbucks has even been promoting that their signature paper cups are going to be fully recyclable or reusable. It’s a paper cup with a cardboard sleeve, so it’s simple right?
Unfortunately, in 2021 the Seal Awards has started a campaign to get Starbucks to make good on their promises made way back in 2008. Their cup goal was supposed to be achieved no later than 2015, but due to their cups having a plastic coating on the inside, their paper cups are not actually recyclable.
So, if their standard paper cup can’t be recycled, what about their plastic cups? Yes! The plastic cups are generally recyclable if done disposed of properly.
Starbucks had started a new campaign back in August of 2021, where they will donate $1 every time people use one of their reusable plastic coffee cups. The money up to 1 million dollars was to be donated to Ocean Conservancy. This campaign was only for 1 week though and it may have been more of a marketing campaign to promote a newly released line of Starbucks branded cups for purchase at their stores.
What about big waste like used Starbucks furniture? Typically, Starbucks store will only replace a piece of furniture once it is absolutely necessary. If a store is remodeled, any existing furniture is recycled to other stores waiting on their own remodel.
Once a piece of furniture is thrown away by a store, it has probably been absolutely beat to death per a former Starbucks employee.
Is Starbucks worth the money?
Starbucks as a corporation has grown tremendously in the past few decades. It is extremely hard to be in a city or suburb and not see a Starbucks coffee shop on the corner.
Plus, Starbucks is continually growing and building more stores. Even my tiny rural town has a Starbucks kiosk in the grocery store, and a new standalone store that was built in the last year.
I am not going to lie and say that I am not a fan of Starbucks, because at certain times a good cup of coffee is just what you need. I am just not a fan of the cost of Starbucks food and their prices for coffee.
I think you can make a better cup of coffee at home for a fraction of the price. If you spend $5 a day on coffee at Starbucks, you can end up spending over $1800 a year on coffee.
I am pretty sure that my total costs for the year on coffee are much closer to $100 a year. That is about $75 for coffee I make at home every day, and about $25 that I will spend on the very occasional Starbucks treat. (If I am being super honest, the only time I have bought Starbucks recently was at the Children’s Hospital because the regular cafe was closed and I desperately needing coffee.)
If you are a huge coffee drinker, check out “Is it cheaper to make your own Coffee? and see just how much the savings can be. It may surprise you!
Now I am not a super crunchy hippie mama that only supports companies that do big environmentally friendly things, but if I knew that Starbucks was charging more because they were doing more then maybe I would go more often.
No company is 100 percent dedicated to giving people the best value for their money, so I am not totally surprised with how Starbucks works. I just wish they would clean up some really big holes in their community programs and with the promises that they make.
To me, it seems like Starbucks is all about their own image and not with their actual practices. Most people are actually shocked to find out that the profit margin on a brewed cup of coffee is 70-80%.
It seems like if they are making so much profit, they would be better able to donate their unused food and coffee, support their employees better, and also help the environment by having recyclable products!
