Starbucks (SBUX) Changes Almost Its Whole Menu

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Apr 28, 5:28AM EDT · Published Jun 3, 4:13AM EDT

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Starbucks (SBUX) does not seem to know how to leave well-enough alone. It is a coffee chain. But, it has tried to sell music, DVDs, coffee machines, and breakfast and lunch foods.

In a sign of how badly its menu is doing, it will change almost the entire menu.

According to Reuters, Starbucks is reworking 90 percent of its baked goods. One of the goals of the change is to get consumers to believe that are getting more value for their money from food items. The other is to sell products that people will find more healthy.

Starbucks says that food sales are well under one-fifth of its revenue. It should probably consider exiting the business completely. Its menu has mostly fresh food. What is not sold one day cannot be saved for the next. That means there is some spoilage rate and expense for items which are not sold. Food is also costly to ship. Coffee can be transported in simple containers.

It is not likely that consumers walk though the doors of Starbucks for food. They are looking for coffee. Trying to sell them something else not only dilutes the brand. It also means that there is one more thing Starbucks has to keep trying to fix in the name of pushing its revenue up.

There is nothing wrong with just selling coffee.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.