Hi, my name is Cindy, and I work in the Global Responsibility department at Starbucks. The fair trade question is a good one, and one I field quite often on MSI. The situation is complex, and I wanted to take a stab at answering the question here so I could give you more detail. First, some background… The Fair Trade system currently allows only smallholder farmers who belong to democratically run coffee cooperatives listed on the Fair Trade registry to participate—a system that currently produces about 4% of the world’s coffee. Today, Starbucks is the largest purchaser of Fair Trade Certified™ coffee in North America, purchasing 20 million pounds last year, which represents … more »

MyStarbucksIdea will be unavailable Friday June 13th from 8p.m. to 12a.m. PDT for routine maintenance and upgrades. These upgrades will help us begin to implement some exciting new features. Here are three things to do during those hours instead of posting to the site (bonus points for doing all 3): Go to a Starbucks location that stays open late to find a new idea for this site. Write info@mystarbucksidea to let us know how much you miss us. Email will still work during this time. Think about ways to encourage great conversations here at Starbucks. Specifically, think about how to implement this idea and return and report your suggestions at 12:01am.

Thanks, loyal customers, for your suggestions on where we should be opening new stores. From India to Amsterdam to Appleton (and everywhere in between), there have been a whole lot of ideas. Since My Starbucks Idea is focused on finding the universal things that matter to customers on a large scale, it’s really difficult for suggestions on one site to really gain momentum with the whole MSI community. Fortunately, we have already created a way to get your site recommendations to the grassroots local level for the US and Canada. It’s located on our website at http://www.starbucks.com/leaseFAQ While this site is primarily designed to communicate with our landlords, it also includes … more »

Earlier this month we posted an update to the many of you who’ve suggested that Starbucks create a coffee-based energy drink. We told you about a drink made by our baristas called the Starbucks Doubleshot® on Ice + Energy--available in the U.S. at Starbucks stores and Barnes & Noble Cafes. Today the news gets even better: We’re also beginning to roll out ready-to-drink Starbucks Doubleshot® Energy + Coffee in Mocha, Vanilla and Coffee flavors at Starbucks stores, convenience stores and supermarkets across the U.S. This new blend of coffee, B-vitamins, guarana and ginseng comes in a tall, 15 fl oz can. See pictures and read more about the new drink here: StarbucksCoffeeOnTheGo

A couple of weeks ago, we asked for your ideas on how to improve this site, directing traffic to the post below to consolidate comments: This Site Needs A Few Improvements! Melody, JavaJana, brodave, dkrst, Breve, Gregg86 and many others took us up on that proposal and gave us some great ideas. Here is a summary of the key ideas and what we're doing about them. First, many ideas from the original list that Melody posted have been implemented, including being able to track your own and other's ideas (through the "Favorites" mechanism) and archiving popular ideas. Also coming soon is the ability to vote "No" on an idea. Finally, the ability to have profiles is planned … more »

We know you like coffee (and we love it!) but how much? Do you want coffee in anything other than your coffee? Here's one idea...vote on it if you like it, or, start your own new idea of a specific coffee-infused food! More Coffee-Infused Food