Starbucks to Add Old Favorites Back to Pastries Menu After Complaints

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Starbucks (SBUX) is retooling its menu to bring back old menu items like the sliced lemon cake it ditched in favor of fancier items.

starbucks-sbux-stockBloomberg reports that when the coffee company bought La Boulange in 2012, it eliminated some of its regular fare for the more upscale pastries the acquisition brought in.

But Starbucks has received a host of complaints and demands that they bring back the old menu items.

You asked, and Starbucks has listened.

Starting this week, the company will begin reverting to selling slices of banana, pumpkin and iced-lemon loaf cake — old favorites — in its U.S. stores. Starbucks will be using new La Boulange recipes and existing suppliers to create food that more closely resembles its previous fare.

“We’ve got a few products that we are going to bring back from the old menu,” Troy Alstead, chief operating officer for Seattle-based Starbucks, told Bloomberg. “Some customers missed a few things.”

The company must perfect the art of supplying its customers with upscale fare without being too snobbish in its offerings — which is a delicate balance.

McDonald’s (MCD), meanwhile, has been rolling out its own pastry offerings, which has the coffee supergiant cautious about upsetting customers and their wants.

But the La Boulange fare isn’t anything to sniff at — and Starbucks hopes to use revised recipes as part of the new menu offering.

Bloomberg notes that La Boulange’s blueberry scone “is about 17 percent smaller than the older version and has 70 fewer calories” while a banana-pecan walnut loaf cake “is about 9 percent smaller than the old banana-walnut bread and has 90 fewer calories.”

SBUX stock is down 5% year to date, though up some 30% from last year.


Article printed from InvestorPlace Media, https://investorplace.com/2014/04/starbucks-pastries-sbux/.

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