Sept. 16, 2006 | This is the second installment of the “Starbucks Mailbag” where I give a former insider's perspective on questions I’ve received about Starbucks strategies and decisions.

Eddy emailed me with this double-barreled question … “Why does Starbucks not scoop beans and instead sells pre-bagged coffee ?"

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[My answer] Eddy, the decision to not scoop beans and instead use primarily use pre-packaged coffee comes down to issues of efficiency and quality. 

Up until the late 90s, Starbucks scooped every bag of beans sold.  But scooping, weighing, and bagging beans takes time—time that most Starbucks customers do not appreciate.  Starbucks customers would rather pick-up a pre-bagged pound of coffee than wait the time it takes a Barista to do it.  As you can surmise, these efficiency gains result in greater financial/profitability for the company because it takes less store-level employee labor to bag beans.

To an extent, these efficiency gains are offset by the loss of aroma and theater.  Starbucks stores today do not smell like Starbucks stores did in the past.  Since very little scooping of beans takes place, stores do not have as strong of a coffee aroma as they used to.  Plus, there is very little theater in a customer plucking a bag of beans off a floor display.  Part of the “Starbucks Experience” used to be the theater of having a Barista scoop, weigh, bag, and place a stamp on each bag of coffee sold.  That theater doesn’t happen much these days at Starbucks.

Selling pre-packaged coffee is also a quality issue.  The quality of the pre-packaged coffee is improved in many ways because there is a one-way value in each pre-packaged bag which releases gasses that roasted beans give off.  Simply put, this one-way valve (known as a “Flavorlock” valve) allows coffee beans to not get stale.  Sure, there is a more complicated explanation but that begins to explain it.

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If you have a burning Starbucks-related question but never knew who to ask, use the contact form and ask me. My answer to your question might appear in a future Starbucks Mailbag posting.