Starbucks Licenses High-End Bakery Products

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 5:44AM EST · Published Jul 14, 7:45AM EDT

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Starbucks Licenses High-End Bakery Products — © courtesy of Starbucks Corp.

In an additional attempt to break free from an image that it is a coffee store chain that competes with McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD), Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX) has set a deal with a bakery to market super high-end food products — in a very few locations and as part of a joint venture.

In its press release, the American coffee company stated:

Starbucks Corporation announced its role as global licensee and investor in the Italian restaurant Princi, the renowned boutique bakery and café founded by Rocco Princi in 1986. Known for its artisan breads created from traditional family recipes, Princi’s five locations have become beloved experiences for customers across Milan and London.

The investment team, which includes Milan-based Angel Lab and Pekepan Investments, will focus on expanding the number of standalone Princi locations worldwide as well as making Princi the exclusive food purveyor at the new Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Rooms in Shanghai and New York. Announced earlier this year, these immersive coffee experiences bring to life Starbucks line of premium, small-lot Reserve coffees in a retail space that allows the roasting, brewing and craft of coffee to take center stage. The Shanghai and New York Roastery locations are on track to open in 2017 and 2018, respectively.

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Also:

In addition to the expansion of standalone Princi specialty stores and inclusion of fresh baking in Starbucks Roasteries, the company will also partner with Rocco Princi to bring a premium food experience to its new Reserve only stores starting in 2017.

It is not clear how much of the investment Princi will get to keep.

Despite the Starbucks attempt to burnish its image as something very different from a fast-food company, its products are often compared, even by consumer research firms, to those of McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Donuts. Maybe Princi will make a difference.

Over the past year, McDonald’s shares have risen 24% while shares of Starbucks are higher by 2%.

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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.