Costa Rican Coffee Producers Could Become Starbucks Associates
After a difficult year of sales, Starbucks is looking to widen its sphere of coffee associates within Central and South America. Coffee producers in both Costa Rica and Brazil were the first to show interest in joining the Starbucks coffee chain, as well as several companies in Colombia. The idea would be to sell shares of the company to the local growers, so that they can have a share in the final profits produced by their own product.
According to the Federation of Colombian Coffee Growers (Federacafe), representatives and stockholders from Starbucks have presented several sales offers to coffee producers around the world. This comes after the price of a share in Starbucks dropped from .45 in January 2008 to .17 this November, a 56% drop.
While Costa Rican coffee producers currently sell some of their Arabic coffee beans to Starbucks, any new associations between local producers and the multinational could help to increase that number. With a drop in coffee sales this year, this could be a great solution that benefits all parties involved in the long run, and really bails Starbucks out in the shorterm. The producers would have a new distribution channel and get shares at a low price and Starbucks will receive a mini bailout, adding more value to the company.
The president of Federacafe also noted that if enough producers buy shares in Starbucks, they might be able to take a spot in the board of directors of the company to help in the administration of the major coffee chain.
In Colombia, it is expected that between 2 and 5 percent of coffee producers would participate. Starbucks currently has more than 8,000 associates around the world.
