From Me to We: How Starbucks’ Sustainability Journey Lost Its Buzz—and How It Can Regain It

 

Starbucks once stood as the global beacon of “doing well by doing good.” In 2020, the brand boldly embraced the “Me to We” movement—shifting focus from individual convenience to collective sustainability according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. With strawless lids, recyclable materials, and an ambitious 2030 goal to cut waste sent to landfills by 50%, Starbucks positioned itself as a restaurant-sector sustainability leader.

Back then, it worked. Consumers applauded the move. Environmental advocates—from the Ocean Conservancy to local community leaders—praised Starbucks for creating scalable change in single-use plastics. The new lids, made from recyclable polypropylene, marked a genuine step toward a circular economy.

What They Got Right

Since 2020, Starbucks has continued to make progress—at least on paper. It expanded the strawless lid program globally, rolled out reusable cup trials in several markets, and pledged to make every store “resource positive” by 2030. Pilot programs in Japan, the U.K., and select U.S. cities allowed customers to borrow and return reusable cups—an innovative test of shared responsibility between company and customer.

The company has also invested in regenerative agriculture, helping coffee farmers adapt to climate change through its “Farmer Support Centers” and new low-carbon coffee initiatives. These moves align directly with the “Me to We” ethos—linking corporate purpose to environmental well-being.

Capitulating 

Share of Stomach

Where They’ve Gone Wrong

But good intentions don’t always translate into good execution. The brand’s progress has been uneven, and its sustainability message has grown fuzzy.

After COVID-19, Starbucks scaled back or paused some of its most promising reusable cup programs, citing “operational challenges.” Waste audits show single-use packaging still dominates its output. Meanwhile, the company’s shift to mobile ordering and drive-thru heavy formats—now responsible for over 70% of U.S. transactions—has increased packaging waste dramatically.

Even more damaging, Starbucks’ sustainability narrative has been overshadowed by internal controversies over employee treatment, unionization efforts, and cost-cutting measures. Consumers can’t embrace a “Me to We” mission if the “we” inside the company feels ignored.

In short, Starbucks led the sustainability conversation five years ago—but it’s no longer leading it today. Competitors like McDonald’s, Pret a Manger, and Panera have leapfrogged with stronger packaging solutions, carbon tracking transparency, and store-level waste reporting.

The Road Back to “We”

Sustainability and social responsibility aren’t side projects—they’re part of brand DNA. Starbucks has the global reach and cultural capital to make sustainable consumerism more than a buzzword again. But it must realign execution with its original vision.

 

Three Grocerant Guru® Insights for Starbucks’ Path Forward

1. Reconnect People and Purpose.
Starbucks’ “Me to We” promise must extend beyond packaging. Consumers now view sustainability as social as much as environmental. Empowering baristas, restoring community trust, and aligning employee well-being with brand mission will turn sustainability back into shared culture—not corporate rhetoric.

2. Make Sustainability Measurable and Visible.
Today’s customers expect data, not declarations. Starbucks should post waste-reduction, recycling, and energy efficiency metrics in-store and online—in real time. Sustainability must be as transparent as a calorie count if it’s to rebuild credibility.

3. Reimagine the Store Experience for the Low-Waste Era.
Digital convenience must evolve into digital responsibility. The brand’s future lies in low-waste convenience: mobile ordering with reusable cup integration, refill incentives tied to loyalty programs, and store designs that minimize waste flow. This is the new face of the grocerant niche—fresh, fast, and forward-thinking.

 

Starbucks taught the world how to personalize a cup of coffee. Now it must teach the world how to personalize sustainability. The future belongs to brands that make “Me to We” more than a slogan—it must become an operational standard and a cultural movement.

Success Leaves Clues—Are You Ready to Find Yours?

One key insight that continues to drive success is this: "The consumer is dynamic, not static." This principle is the foundation of our work at Foodservice Solutions®, where Steven Johnson, the Grocerant Guru®, has been helping brands stay relevant in an ever-evolving market.

Want to strengthen your brand’s connection with today’s consumers? Let’s talk. Call 253-759-7869 for more information.

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At Starbucks Sustainability Matters to Consumers

 

Building a brand with the ‘halo’ of better-4-you requires a focus on consumers unmet needs or expectations and that requires looking a customer ahead.  According to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® consumers want companies to help show the way to a ‘more sustainable future’.

So, in the case of Starbucks, starting August 14, they expanded their 100 percent reusable format to 12 stores in Napa and Petaluma, California. That means every beverage made at these stores will be prepared in either a personal cup or in a Starbucks reusable Borrow A Cup that customers can take with them and return in smart return bins.

Starbucks big vision for the future is that every Starbucks beverage could be served in a reusable cup. A future where every time our customers visit Starbucks, they’re welcome to bring their own personal reusable cup, or Starbucks will provide them with a reusable cup. This way it’s easy to reuse wherever they’re enjoying their favorite Starbucks beverage. 

Just how will it work? Here’s how the 100 percent Reusables Operating Model works:   

·         Order your drink as usual at a participating Starbucks, in the café, drive-thru or via mobile order and pay.  

·         Your hot or cold beverage will be served in a personal cup or a ‘borrowed’ cup, which you can take with you at these 12 stores from August 14 – October 22.  

·         If you are using a borrowed cup, when done with your beverage, return the cup by scanning and dropping the cup into a participating store’s contactless return bin. The cup will be professionally washed and sanitized, ready to be used again. 

·         Customers who bring their own personal cup will receive the standard benefit of $0.10 off and Starbucks Rewards members will receive 25 bonus stars.   

·         When customers return their borrowed cup, they will also have the option to register online with TURN to earn points for every Borrow a Cup return and prizes through TURN (a leading reuse platform designed for scale - through a fully circular system, TURN offers integrated solutions to end single-use plastic.) 

·         In case you did not know Starbucks has been testing the 100% reusables model in several markets including three cities in the US (including the Starbucks café located in Starbucks headquarters in Seattle), as well as globally in Japan, Singapore, London, and South Korea since 2021. 

·         After a successful 3-month test, now customers can bring their personal cup through drive-thru going forward at 192 stores across Colorado. 

·         In support of the company’s goal to reduce waste by 50 percent by 2030, Starbucks is shifting away from single-use plastics, championing the use of recycled content, and promoting reusability, driven by a broader shift towards a circular economy. 

·         The biggest thing to learn from these tests as we prepare to bring this model to more stores, is how to offer customers a way to shift away from single use cups toward a reusable to-go-coffee experience, in a way that is convenient, easy, and enjoyable.   Are you looking a customer ahead? What do your customer want?

For international corporate presentations, regional chain presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert, and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit GrocerantGuru.com, FoodserviceSolutions.US or call 1-253-759-7869

Restaurant Consumers Like Sustainable Branded Messaging

 

Success does leave clues and one clue Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions® has been highlighting in our blog is the positive response chain restaurants receive when the edify their brands with sustainable messaging. 

When that branded messaging is extended into a consumer-focused interactive participatory marketing program the positive response garners incremental buy-in according to Johnson.

Regular readers of this blog knew about Just Salad last interactive participatory marketing program. Just how many of you knew that that program saw customers rushing to get its signature blue bowls for a fair price.  Here is the point.  Many restaurant companies have been shying away from discounting amid the economic environment, Just Salad is embracing it.

So, the New York City-based salad chain, which has managed to keep prices low versus its competitors despite some price increases, recently launched a discount program to increase the use of its signature blue reusable bowls. It worked so well the chain repeated it weeks later.

Let’s go over the program again. The program allowed consumers to buy salads for $8.99 if they used a reusable bowl. The bowls, which sell for $1, have been in use at the chain since it first started 17 years ago.

You might remember that it was the only option when the brand first opened. Founder Nick Kenner told NRN that while he didn’t want to create waste, he also didn’t like that the garbage would be full of reusable bowls at the end of the day.

Now, seventeen years later, reusables are all the rage with brands like Starbucks even jumping in on the trend. However, Kenner doesn’t think this is just a trend, it’s “momentum.”

Sustainable reusables and the environment mean so much to Just Salad that the company worked to become B-Corp certified — something the brand was just named last month. The company even has a chief sustainability officer, Sandra Noonan.

Just Salad founder Nick Kenner, stated, “[Sustainability] is definitely intrinsic to who we are and how we think about everything we do.”

Now then the latest promotion started out of internal conversations amongst leadership at Just Salad about how to increase reusable bowl usage. But also, prices for everything have gone up and the chain wanted to serve as a counter to that.

So, consumers who use a reusable bowl have always been able to add a free topping to their salad — most choose avocado, according to Kenner. For the month of February, those consumers also paid just $8.99 for their salads. Salads at the chain normally retail for anywhere between $11.99 and $13.49, depending on the ingredients.

Kenner continued, “I have this dream of selling all our products for $8.99 forever with reusable bowls,”. “And I think that would get everyone to use it and get everyone to experience how great our product is.”

Here is where you need to rear slowly and reread; The result of the promotion was that returning customers with reusable bowls came “a bit” more, but “a ton” of new customers came for the first time and bought a reusable bowl. Many of those new customers have continued to use Just Salad after the promotion ended.

According to Kenner, the new customers obtained during the promotion “overwhelmingly” stayed with the brand.

“We’re not doing it for profit, but from a longer-term to medium-longer-term perspective, we’re doing it to increase our reusable bowl usage and get a lot more customers into the Just Salad ecosystem,” he said.

Kenner feels as though he just needs to get the product Just Salad is offering into people’s hands and they will discover the chain’s salads are “best in class” versus competitors.

“Our mission is, ‘well, we need to just get this product in people's hands,’” he said.

The bowls are so well-priced during the discounting that Just Salad begins to compete with quick-service players. Even the non-discounted bowls are cheaper than those at other competitors in the space.

“I feel like we compete as much against the traditional fast-food players as we do against the traditional fast-casual players,” Kenner said. “So, we do feel like we are creating a seat at the table for all customers in both fast-food and fast-casual”

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing tactics look more like yesterday than tomorrow?  Visit GrocerantGuru.com for more information or contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us Remember success does leave clues and we just may have the clue you need to propel your continued success.

The ‘Halo’ of Better-4-You Food Continues to Drive Customer Adoption

 

One of the success clues found driving customer adoption within the grocerant niche filled with Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared food has been the discovery of food that is deemed ‘better-4-you by consumers according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®.

 A recent news article pointed out that today more than 48 million households include someone whose diagnosis can be managed in whole or in part by diet and other lifestyle choices.

How many of our regular readers have read the famous quote by Hippocrates, circa 400 AD who stated,

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” This concept has been around longer than any of us.

So, although there’s no evidence that the Greek physician ever uttered this famous quote, the notion highlights the longstanding importance of nutritious foods in the prevention and management of disease. Now I’m going to quote the article.

“Over the past 25 years, supermarket-based retail programs — designed specifically to support the health and wellness of customers, associates and surrounding communities — have been established, shaped and spearheaded by innovative registered dietitian (RD) pioneers.

Retail RDs pair science-based knowledge of how food, nutrition and lifestyle can either contribute to disease development or help maintain and restore health with educational selling strategies and tactics to measurably impact consumer choice at the point of purchase. As retail RDs started to expand into full-time, consumer-facing positions, they also used multimedia communications to reach very broad audiences with food and nutrition guidance via broadcast and in-store television, broadcast and in-store radio, custom magazines, in-store point-of-purchase communications, ad messaging, live events, and retailer websites. 

Momentum picked up in the early 2000s as more and more retailers recognized health and wellness as a purchase driver and sought to establish points of differentiation in the well-being space. Tactics such as in-person classes, children’s education tours, blogging and video communication gained traction in step with burgeoning social media. 

Although the retail health-and-wellness landscape has expanded and contracted in pockets of the grocery industry, commonalities remain consistent, including digital and in-store path-to-purchase marketing efforts, customer engagement and personalized food and nutrition education, and use of incentives or prescriptions to purchase better-for-you foods and medically tailored meals. Historically, layered approaches tend to have the highest degree of impact. 

Defining and Measuring Food as Medicine at Retail

As retail RD leadership in Food as Medicine initiatives has grown, so have the efforts to define, enhance and measure the value and effectiveness of collective Food as Medicine programming. Beginning in 2013, select retail dietitians from noncompeting retailers worked together to co-author the first edition of the Supermarket Business and Industry Skills to Thrive in Retail Dietetics Certificate of Training; it launched in 2015 as a tool for the next generation of retail RDs, covering how to navigate the retail landscape, define roles and responsibilities, expand reach, and use data-driven metrics to communicate return on investment. 

In 2021, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics approved a definition of Food as Medicine: “A philosophy where food and nutrition aids individuals through interventions that support health and wellness.” In 2022, a new Certificate of Training program was launched, Excelling in the Retail Food Industry. In conjunction, Food as Medicine in the Retail Setting was developed as a resource guide. In addition, a new Nutrition in Food Retail curriculum was established for dietetic students and interns.

Food as Medicine: The Retail Opportunity

Food as Medicine bridges the gap between traditional medicine and established food-based prevention and treatment. Health care systems, health insurers and a growing body of researchers are increasingly engaging in Food as Medicine. It is critical for food retailers to improve and expand current health-and-wellness offerings. More than 48 million households include someone whose diagnosis can be managed in whole or in part by diet and other lifestyle choices. These households represent $268 million in annual grocery sales. Food retailers have a massive opportunity to provide solutions, from prevention to management through personalized medical nutrition therapy and individually tailored meals, help at the pharmacy counter, expert guidance when navigating the food aisles, and so much more.” 

For international corporate presentations, regional chain presentations, educational forums, or keynotes contact: Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions.  His extensive experience as a multi-unit restaurant operator, consultant, brand / product positioning expert, and public speaking will leave success clues for all. For more information visit GrocerantGuru.com, FoodserviceSolutions.US or call 1-253-759-7869

At Just Salad You Can Keep the Bowl

 

Just what is branded sustainability? At Just Salad, I guess it is a branded salad bowl that you can reuse.  Reusing a salad bowl had the ‘halo’ of better for you in the minds-eye of the consumer according to Steven Johnson Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®

It is clear that Just Salad understand the importance of sustainability as a valued consumer touchpoint. To further incentivize waste-free dining and make sustainability affordable and accessible to everyone, Just Salad will be running a promotion for its Reusable Bowl Program throughout February.

All month long, Just Salad is dropping the price of salads to $8.99 for guests who reuse their bowl for in-store purchases. This is a great example of consumers focused interactive and participatory food marketing that at a minimum will drive trial according to the team at Foodservice Solutions®.  

Just Salad is driven by a mission to create the most convenient, waste-free dining experience for customers nationwide, this initiative represents one of the many innovative ways that Just Salad is working toward eliminating single-use packaging waste and promoting everyday reuse.

How many of you are going to buy a couple of these bowls and keep the branded Just Salad bowl at home for your next ‘homemade’ salad?

Invite Foodservice Solutions® to complete a Grocerant ScoreCard, or for product positioning or placement assistance, or call our Grocerant Guru®.  Since 1991 Foodservice Solutions® of Tacoma, WA has been the global leader in the Grocerant niche. Contact: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or 253-759-7869