Answered Essay: Write a summary (about one page) for Sturbucks Company history.

Starbuck Corporation is an American company offering coffee and has coffeehouse chains. It was established in 1971 in Seattle, Washington by three partners Jerry Baldwin, Zev Seigi and Gordon Bowker. It’s quite a story how these three met while they were students and all had gained interest in selling high quality coffee, post their session with Alfred Peet on roasting coffee beans. The name of the company also has a story in itself. The name was to be started by “st” as Gordon and his advertising partner thought that it would be more impactful initials. However, the complete name was derived from the old mining town named “Starbo”.

Their first store location was Western Avenue, which was later moved to Pike Place, where they sold only roasted coffee beans. They sourced the coffee beans from Peet and other growers too to meet the increasing demand. Starbucks offered brewed coffee only as samples.

Came in 1980’s, where the sales of coffee in the US were falling low. However, this did not affect Starbucks. Moreover, in 1984 they acquired Peet’s Coffee and Tea company, to expand and integrate the supply of coffee. The falling sales in coffee also forces Starbucks to start selling brewed coffee’s. Espresso was the first one, which was served by Starbucks, at six locations in Seattle.

In a sudden change of events, the original owners of Starbucks sold their company to Howard Schultz, who was the former manager and had his own coffee outlets named “Giornale “. Post this Starbuck started expanding and it was the first time that Starbucks started opening up stores outside Washington; reaching a figure of 46 stores by 1989. In June 1992, when Starbucks had 140 outlets an Initial Public Offering (IPO) was listed on the stock market, when the company’s market value was USD 271 million. Only 12% of the company was offered in the IPO and this resulted in doubling the store numbers within the next two years.

Ahead of this, Starbucks looking out for expansion outside North America, when Tokyo came first. The first Starbucks outlet outside America was in Tokyo, Japan in 1996. However, the company had a different strategy of entering the UK market. The company then acquired approximately 56 outlets and rebranded them to Strabucks, giving them a leverage over the local UK market. This step lead to opening up Starbucks cafes and new stores across the US as well as Europe. As Strabucks grew, they started acquiring major coffee brands and coffee houses across various locations in the US, Europe and South America.

This company rose from the traditional coffee sellers to offering services and food items to customers all across the world.