I will offer an observation here: franchise production of food and drink relies upon homogeneity. Sometimes, people go out for something new, but often people want the same old thing. Someone across the country in a strange bed, where their accent sticks out, might want something familiar, and that is the experience of McDonald's in the United States. I could go from one corner of the country to another and the burgers would taste identical.

And so, people want replicable coffee drinks. And coffee can be a fickle beast to brew. Given that, unlike McDonald's which can freeze and ship, you must go from bean to drink on premise in a matter of minutes, I could see a focus on trying to ferret out a way to make that expensive cup taste the same from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine.

> Given that, unlike McDonald's which can freeze and ship, you must go from bean to drink on premise in a matter of minutes, I could see a focus on trying to ferret out a way to make that expensive cup taste the same from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine.

There's a 2013 article on why 30% of Michelin-star restaurants went with Nespresso, which seems to have consistency down: https://www.grubstreet.com/2013/03/nespresso-sold-at-micheli...

Oddly, globally, Starbucks around the world are not the same; for example, the percent of fat in the milk differs from region to region.

Yes, I think where an established culture exists in some boundaries that a franchise tries to grow into, it must adapt and offer its own variety within that. I know McDonald's would be different in, say, Japan, but it is likely the same within Japan.

It is a bit more startling in the United States because it is such a large country. Imagine crossing a reasonable fraction of the globe and the food is still the same! The comfort of the familiar is an incredibly strong lure and I believe it happens in ways that are so broad we can hardly see we are within them, like a bug on the surface of a tidal wave. Food and drink homogeneity is only one of the ways, but is likely one of the more primal. People of a certain age, when given Kosher-for-Passover Coke (still made with sugar) are delighted by the return to what they grew up with.

In any case, Starbucks wants a customer who, perhaps having had their fill of experimental recipes and lunches at new places, can reach for a stimulus just like they had before. It might mean a lot in an airport terminal after nights on a mattress you've never slept on before.

McDonald has very different menus in different regions, as does starbucks.

I remember visiting NY and being fascinated by many of the options I've never seen in other countries.

Yes. And your basic burger is still going to taste the same. The idea is that Item X is going to taste the same within a given region, typically a country, not that Y or Z will not be on offer.

In their Chicago HQ (ironically on Randolph Street), McDonald's has an "Global Menu" where they serve a rotating selection of items served around world. It seems that chicken is king in most other countries.

It isn't in the US? What's the top options then?

Most people get beef burgers at McD's in the US (at least, that's my impression).

(1) Food safety issues could literally kill Starbucks

(2) Starbucks business depends on having those measurements for quality control

(3) Starbucks gets lots of vendor deals from partner companies because they are a well know brand and having them on board helps land more deals

(4) Hacker using the machines might be able to sabotage the stories; food poisoning, fires, etc

(5) The smarter the tech in store — less training required per employee on site.

(6) Starbucks has other plans for it, such as enabling customers to use their network for IoT devices

(6) etc.

>> The smarter the tech in store — less training required per employee on site

We know that the larger the attack surface the more likely is to get hacked so if Starbucks really cares about everything you said (i.e food safety issues) it should hire more people and less machines.

How would more people make their coffee more consistent?

Starbucks is a massive chain people expect the same thing at any Starbucks they go to. People are very inconsistent, if the coffee tasted different at every Starbucks they would not be as large as they are.

Using that logic, all tech with vulnerabilities should be removed.

While I understand the urge want to humanize the process, give people jobs, this is not the way to do it.

Future of human employees inside of Starbucks is clearly focused on what the baristas do best as humans, being friendly person that’s humanize the experience of getting coffee.

As for including humans in food safety procedures, what exactly are you referring too? Inserting 30-60 IoT continuous environmental and systems monitoring sensors into a store clearing makes more sense that paying a human to be in the store 24/7 and writing it down on paper. If I am recalling correctly, Starbucks has already saved millions by not letting the on site employees control the HVAC systems.

Have you met people? They’re really unreliable and inconsistent, especially on minimum wage.

Well if your companies entire raison d'être is to serve coffee, then you’re gonna spend the cash to make sure your coffee machines are in tip-top shape.

It would be weird if Starbucks wasn’t investing in their coffee machines. Make me wonder what they were spending their money on.

You could subtly vary these factors remotely (and per shop), then use a customer feedback form per shop to see which one makes people most happy. Perhaps you could combine this with the hardness/composition of the water so you get the right coffee every time.

I think this might be a barista thing. A while back an espresso machine with open source software was posted here.[0] It has all kinds of data. And I've seen baristas wanting very specific parameters for making coffee (e.g. making pour-over coffee with exact weights, volumes, temperatures, bean grind durations). I imagine (but of course could be wrong) there are baristas at the top in Starbucks who find this data important.

[0]: https://decentespresso.com/downloads

I thought a lot of other large "fast food" retailers do the same for their equipment? Chik-fil-a does something similar for quality control and some predictive cooking if I recall correctly.

If it means a guaranteed perfect cup of coffee then by all means why not? I hate when I go to a place I am used to getting decent coffee at and it comes out tasting terrible.