It is a monsoony day in Nashik, as I step out for my favourite brew. The first coffee shop I spot is a Starbucks at Untwadi. Looking at the humongous crowd and queue, I continue my search. To my surprise, the nearest coffee shop is a Starbucks. Again, huge crowds. And yet, the Starbucks Coffee Company says that due to cautious consumers there has been a quarterly sales fall. Curiosity brewed within me, so I made my grand entrance at the Starbucks coffee house. Upon entering the café, the aroma of coffee embraced me, instantly making sense of the lively crowd as if they were all part of a caffeine-fueled community who prefer a Starbucks which is battling fierce home- grown competition.

I picked up a conversation with the store manager of the Starbucks outlet in Untwadi. He surprised me by saying we have 150+ transactions a day. A transaction might have one or more items valued at average Rs 250. We did the math. That's around Rs 65,000 to Rs 70,000 a day. And in the festive season that lasts from October to December in India, the sales are a lakh per day in their store. In a tier one city, it touches Rs two- lakh to Rs three-lakh a day. So much for those critics who say, Starbucks needs faster service!

Fusion of coffee and culture
The moment you enter the coffee shop, you smell coffee. My family says, everytime you inhale the sweet aroma of coffee, you travel to the cliffhanging villages of Southern Yemen, where coffee beans were first cultivated eight hundred years ago, as well as the Parisian salons and cafes where the French Revolution was born in the 19th century. My grandparents talk about the cavernous coffee house in Kolkata, where they have spotted two of India's three Nobel Prize winners. The point is, coffee studies have reported that the scent of coffee alone (which has no caffeine) is strong enough to stimulate one’s cognitive function. Even a quick whiff of coffee might make you feel energetic and that is an addiction to a few (like me).

Bang for your buck
One thing that we all would agree is Starbucks made coffee an art in a ‘cutting chai’ country like ours. Starbucks built a stake in the coffee chain culture. It has fended off rivals and revolutionised coffee by branding and setting cafes that would actually give us the experience of a real cold brew on a summer day. To educate India on coffee, Starbucks hosts free coffee education sessions across India every Thursday at 4 pm, where participants can learn about and taste different coffees.

But what Starbucks succeeded in was saving a few seconds off each order. As per Bloomberg, Starbucks "make an extra USD 900-million a year if each store served five extra patrons per day." That’s why the group has invested in optimising a new bar setup, where the key ingredients are turned into a Mocha Frappuccino. And so, if the earlier system took 16 steps and 87 seconds, the new system aims to be 14 steps and 36 seconds. When there are billions of potential drink combinations and hundreds of Mocha combinations, then every second hived off is money earned. Globally, Starbucks has 40,000 cafes and more than 4,00,000 employees and operates in more than 20 countries.

In India, it is a 50:50 joint-venture between Starbucks Coffee Company and Tata Consumer Products which was launched in 2012. Today, Tata Starbucks operates more than 390 stores across 54 Indian cities, with approximately 4,300 partners (employees).

Sustainability or smart marketing
Starbucks made it a point to lead the way in India by adopting bamboo and recyclable straws, recycled tissues, paper cups, and sustainable packaging for its merchandise. Their sustainability journey began with that very first paper cup of coffee. However, there was a catch— those early cups were lined with a plastic-based coating, making delamination and recycling a challenge. The plastic lining couldn’t withstand temperatures above 100°C, and who sips coffee that hot anyway? Most of us wait for it to cool to about 80°C, and even then, we only hold onto that cup for about 5-10 minutes before it gets cold. Unlike reusable water bottles, these cups aren’t designed for prolonged use; repeated expansion and contraction can cause the plastic to break down into particles. That© s why it’s always recommended to crush the cup after one use—it' s a one-time deal, and this process was scientifically studied before becoming the norm.

Fortunately, the tide is turning. Plastic is gradually being phased out, and organic barriers are stepping in. Water-based barrier-coated paper cups offer a much greener alternative, as they are made from renewable resources and are fully biode- gradable. Not only do they reduce landfill waste, but they’re also free from harmful chemicals, making them safe for both us and the planet. That said, plastic cups are still widely available in India, despite a government ban imposed years ago—a reminder that while the shift is happening, there' s still a long way to go.

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Disha Chakraborty is a correspondent at PrintWeek and WhatPackaging?