You will read and discuss former English 102 student persuasive research essays for DF 7. The student essays you are reading had the same essay assignment you have: to write about a school, work or ot
Student’s Last Name 14
Student Name
Professor Laura Kingston
ENG102
March 8, 2011
Cost and Calories: Two Birds with One Stone
There have been a lot of changes at Starbucks since I began working for them as a barista at a location in Burien, Washington in November of 2006. Recipes have been altered, ingredients modified, even the logo has undergone a makeover. Several notable changes, especially between 2007 and 2008, focused on offering more healthy options to customers. Alongside these revisions, many new products were introduced in order to meet the growing demand of an increasingly health conscious customer base. Similarly, as the economy was crumbling, Starbucks began taking steps to reduce costs. This included cutting back on staff and labor hours, and instituting stricter policies regarding employment eligibility. Throughout all of these changes, there was always one thing that Starbucks seemed to ignore that I felt could be done to cut costs while at the same time promote healthier products: change their policy on whipped cream. This topping comes standard on many of the drinks Starbucks offers. An average dollop of whipped cream adds between 70-110 calories to any given beverage, and the costs associated with it are rather high. By making whipped cream optional rather than standard on so many of its drinks, Starbucks can promote healthier beverages while at the same time cutting expenses.
Approximately 30% of the beverages on the Starbucks base menu come standard with whipped cream unless otherwise specified. Among these are some of the company’s biggest sellers, like mochas and Frappuccinos (Helliker). Likewise, several promotional and seasonal beverages, such as the Cinnamon Dolce latte and the Caramel Brule’ latte, also come standard with the topping. The addition of whipped cream to a grande’ mocha adds seventy calories, 110 calories if it is iced (“Nutrition by the Cup”). In fact, the nutritional label on the Lucerne heavy cream used in Starbucks’ whipped cream states that there are forty-five calories in one serving, which is only one tablespoon. To put that into perspective, the typical serving size of most liquids is one cup, or eight ounces; a single cup of heavy cream would contain 720 calories, 640 of those from fat. In addition to heavy cream, Starbucks adds approximately three ounces of their vanilla syrup to sixteen ounces of heavy cream to make one whipped cream unit, which ultimately adds even more sugar and calories.
Starbucks may not be the first company one thinks of when considering healthy alternatives, but it has, in fact, made several attempts in recent years to improve the healthiness of its products and give customers more options. In January of 2007, the company stopped using milk from cows treated with the growth hormone, rBGH (Harris). A few months later, in May, they changed their default standard from whole milk to reduced fat 2% milk. This slightly reduced the amount of fat and calories in any beverage containing milk (Borrman). That same month, Starbucks also announced the removal of artificial trans fats from all of its products in the North American region (Harris). September of that year saw the promotion of healthy breakfast options including the introduction of their Perfect Oatmeal (Passé). More recently, in May of 2010, the recipes for the Frappuccino line of blended beverages were changed to allow for more customization. The new, more flexible recipes created the possibility of Frappuccinos with 25% less calories in some instances (Helliker).
Another product born from the demand for healthier options was the Vivanno smoothie. When this product was introduced in July of 2008, it was advertised for its health benefits and nutritional content. The beverage contained one entire banana, sixteen grams of protein, five grams of fiber, and only around 270 calories (“Starbucks Launches Vivanno…”). Unlike other beverages at Starbucks, the Vivanno was only offered in one size, the sixteen ounce grande’, in order to uphold the nutritional consistency that was advertised. Internally, partners at Starbucks received Vivanno specific training prior to the launch, where the nutritional contents were greatly emphasized. (As a side note, employees at Starbucks are officially referred to as partners by the company.) The partners were told to strictly adhere to the official recipe which typically yielded around four ounces of leftovers. This waste was also specifically addressed in the training as acceptable in order to maintain the consistency of the product (Cronk).
Quality and consistency were a major focal point on all products around this time. Howard Schultz had returned to the company as CEO and had instituted a company-wide shift back to basics. As part of this push, all partners were required to attend Espresso Excellence training (Schultz). The intent of this training was to increase customer satisfaction by focusing greatly on the quality and consistency of Starbucks’ products through a reiteration of basic fundamentals. This included methods of brewing (or pulling) espresso shots, and proper milk steaming techniques, among other things. Many stores at the time (mine included) were using espresso machines that could pull single as well as double shots of espresso. As part of Espresso Excellence, it was mandated that all of these machines would be reprogrammed so that they could only pull double shots as these were considered to be more consistent in quality and taste. This of course, would yield an extra shot of espresso any time a drink was made requiring only one shot. As with the Vivanno, this waste was deemed acceptable.
The effects of the crumbling US economy hadn’t failed to impact Starbucks, however, and the company was forced to begin tightening its belt. Some of the measures taken to cut costs included the typical cutting of jobs and labor hours. In mid 2008, the company announced that it would close around 600 stores in the United States (Linn). As things became bleaker, more and more expenses were being scrutinized and reconsidered and, understandably, waste quickly became an area of concern. Just like that, about six months after its launch, the recipes for the Vivanno smoothies were changed to yield virtually no leftovers, and the espresso machines were again reprogrammed to allow for the pulling of single shots of espresso (Cronk). It was evident that profitability had been reprioritized above quality and consistency in an attempt to survive the economic collapse.
It was during this time that it occurred to me that making whipped cream optional could have the potential to both cut expenses and promote healthier choices, thus killing two birds with one delectably creamy stone. Aside from the obvious health benefits of removing whipped cream from a beverage, there is a massive amount of money to be saved by reducing the quantity of whipped cream the company goes through. During an interview with Corinne Cronk, general manager at the Starbucks café where I work, I collected several bits of information regarding the costs associated with whipped cream. Our particular store goes through an average of about 21.5 gallons of heavy cream in one week at a cost of $6.09 per gallon; equaling an annual cost of approximately $6813.09. One gallon of heavy cream yields around eight units of whipped cream, revealing that, on average, my store goes through approximately 8944 units of whipped cream in one year. Additionally, the extra cost of the vanilla syrup that is included works out to a cost of $1341.60 per year, while the CO2 cartridges used to charge each whipped cream unit add another $1788.80. As for the labor costs involved in making whipped cream, I timed myself over the course of three shifts during which I made a number of whipped cream units, averaging about thirty uninterrupted seconds per unit. Using the average earned wage at my store, I equated that it costs approximately $861.61 in labor per year to make whipped creams. In total, the annual expenses incurred just at my store for whipped cream equal to about $10,805.10. When multiplied by the approximately 11,131 stores in the United States (Form 10-K), and taking into account that my store does about twice as much business as the average Starbucks café (Cronk), the cost of whipped cream, just in the American market, could be somewhere close to 60.1 million dollars annually.
Obviously this serves as an immense cost cutting potential for Starbucks, especially when one considers that the cost of whipped cream is already worked into the price of the drink (Cronk). A customer opting to have their beverage made without whipped cream still pays the same price for their drink regardless. By changing the current policy of whipped cream to one of optional or upon request, Starbucks would be increasing the number of customers choosing to forgo whipped cream on their drink while at the same time reducing the amount of whipped cream used overall. While lengthier studies would yield more concrete numbers, it could be asserted that just a 20% reduction in the use of whipped cream could equate to a savings of over twelve million dollars per year for the company in the United States alone.
Savings are not the only benefit to this scenario. This new policy would also be in keeping with the trend towards healthier products the company has shown, most notably between 2007 and 2008. Reducing the amount of beverages sold with whipped cream as a topping would similarly cut the number of calories by up to 110 for those beverages. If a person consumes one grande’ Caramel Frappuccino just once a week, removing the whipped cream would result in an annual reduction of 5720 calories. When viewed on a grander scale, this could equate to a substantial reduction in the consumption of fat-riddled calories by Starbucks’ customers. The health angle of making whipped cream optional could even be used as a way to deflect any backlash the company may receive by changing its policy on the topping.
Starbucks is certainly not the only option when it comes to coffee shops, especially in the city of Seattle. Around town there are several smaller, local chains of coffee shops that compete with the coffee giant. On one very caffeinated day, I visited Café Ladro in the downtown area, Café Vita in Lower Queen Anne, Voxx in Eastlake, and Uptown Espresso in Belltown. At each location I engaged the person making my drink, asking them what their policy was regarding whipped cream. In all four instances I was told that whipped cream was added upon request only. Surely this is due to the high cost of heavy cream, especially to smaller businesses that don’t enjoy the benefits of buying it for $6 a gallon. Gallon jugs of heavy cream are manufactured by Lucerne Foods, Inc. specifically for Starbucks Corporation (Lucerne…), a benefit not known to many smaller businesses, to be sure. In fact, you can’t even buy heavy cream by the gallon at your local grocery store, and the equivalent would cost closer to $20. Obviously, the cost of heavy cream, and therefore whipped cream, is a motivation for smaller coffee shops to limit how much they go through.
Given the tough economic times the country has faced in recent years, why hasn’t Starbucks implemented a similar policy? It is a question that I have asked myself repeatedly over the last year or so. Robert Speights, a co-worker of mine at Starbucks, said it best when he said, “Sugar and fat taste good!” Surely, this is a true statement for a lot of people. After all, a hot chocolate is tasty, but a hot chocolate with whipped cream tastes even better! On the Starbucks website there is a forum where customers can make suggestions and requests (My Starbucks Idea). I performed a search on this forum using the words “whipped cream”. The vast majority of the results were posts requesting fat-free whipped cream, soy whipped cream, sugar-free whipped cream, or other flavors of whipped cream, such as dark chocolate. Additionally, my own experience serving customers at Starbucks has only proven to confirm people’s love of the fluffy, yet hardly light topping. It is not uncommon to hear a customer ask for extra whipped cream on their beverage. In some cases customers will ask for a larger cup just to accommodate even more whipped cream, and I’ve even had customers request a cup filled with nothing but whipped cream (all at no extra cost, I might add). Clearly, the demand is there, and it would not be in the interest of good business to simply cut people off from such a beloved topping.
An abrupt halting of whipped cream as a standard topping is not necessarily what I’m suggesting, however. Seven words are all that would be required to immediately reduce the amount of whipped cream used by the company: Would you like whipped cream on that? Compared against the current policy where whipped cream is added unless otherwise specified by the customer, asking this question would automatically increase the number of times a customer opted to have the whipped cream omitted from their beverage, thereby reducing the amount used by the company. In this scenario, those people who do want the topping would still get it, thus avoiding negative customer experiences. This policy might also help to create awareness in those customers who never really gave the subject much thought, reminding them of a quick and easy way to make their beverage a little healthier. Furthermore, such a policy would require very little in the way of implementation aside from informing the partners that they must now ask the customer if they would like whipped cream or not, and there would be a minimal impact overall to the interaction between customer and partner.
There would be some incurred costs by instituting such a policy that, in all fairness, must be acknowledged. When a hot beverage is topped with whipped cream, the cup must be filled to a slightly lower level to allow for the lid to fit over the cup without making a mess. Therefore, any hot drink not topped with whipped cream would require slightly more milk in the cup to make up for the extra space; about a half of an ounce. Additionally, there would be an increase in the use of flat lids for iced beverages. This would be negated, however, by a decreased consumption of the dome lids used to accommodate the whipped cream on iced beverages. Also, since whipped cream is an official part of the recipe for certain beverages, the new policy would require revisions to any recipes that call for whipped cream as a standard topping. Because of this, any printed recipes would have to be re-printed to reflect the revisions. There would also be the slight cost of printing the new policy for display at individual store locations, as well as revisions to future training courses for new hires (Cronk). All of these things being considered, I believe that the net savings coupled with the health benefit more than outweigh these costs.
Ultimately, Starbucks is a business out to meet the demands of the people it serves, and a few million dollars in savings might not be worth the possibility of upsetting its customers by changing this policy. In that regard, the motives behind their current policy of whipped cream as a standard topping are completely understandable. However, being that Starbucks is a company that seems to pride itself on corporate responsibility as well as success, there’s no reason that changing this policy couldn’t serve both of these interests with little to no negative impact. Time and time again, the company has proven that it understands its own responsibility to the expectations of its shareholders and the health and happiness of its customers, and such understanding has surely contributed to its success over the years. Now, Starbucks has yet another opportunity to meet the needs of both groups by simply asking “Would you like whipped cream on that?”
Works Cited
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