Starbucks’ latest innovation: cut back on innovation. Plus, the Specialty Coffee Association pushes forward a partnership with Colombia to advance its new quality assessment protocols, and Lavazza ads get pulled from the air because their compostable pods are not quite as compostable as they suggest.
‘SCA Advances its Coffee Value Assessment Through Colombia FNC Partnership’ – via Daily Coffee News
Last week, the Specialty Coffee Association hosted its annual trade show in Houston, Texas, one of the biggest global coffee events, drawing thousands of attendees.
On April 24, the day before the show opened, the SCA dropped industry-changing news: they would be taking over the professional sensory evaluation certification known as the Q Grader program. The SCA announced that it planned to “evolve” the Q program and merge it with the organization’s updated cupping standards, the Coffee Value Assessment (CVA).
The CVA aims to redefine how coffee quality is assessed, and its design is “rooted in the latest sensory science and built on years of research and collaboration.”
One of the SCA’s goals is to encourage wider adoption of the CVA within the coffee industry. As part of this effort, the SCA signed a memorandum of understanding with the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) on April 25 to use the CVA, as reported by Nick Brown for Daily Coffee News.
Under the agreement, the FNC will train its cuppers and technical teams to use the new cupping standards and “explore its broader adoption across Colombian coffees,” according to a press release. The FNC is one of the most influential coffee governing bodies—Brown called the FNC “arguably the world’s most impactful national producer group in terms of market reach and governance.”
The SCA will also share data gathered from the CVA “on coffee attributes and market preferences” with the FNC to support the organization’s research efforts. The SCA said the data would help Colombian producers understand “evolving market trends and preferences—ensuring that insights gathered through the CVA directly benefit coffee-growing communities.”
Colombia is the third-largest coffee producer globally, and the FNC has been active for decades in marketing Colombian coffee to a global audience, most notably with Juan Valdez, a fictional farmer used in commercials and other marketing materials. The FNC represents over half a million farmers—the partnership between the SCA and the FNC may help with the SCA’s push for wider industry adoption of the CVA.
‘Indonesia Risks Becoming a Net Coffee Importer as Harvests Fall’ – via Nikkei Asia
Indonesia is the fourth-largest coffee producer in the world, but falling yields and rising domestic consumption are making it increasingly difficult for the country to produce enough coffee to meet demand. As Belinda Yohana reports for Nikkei Asia, farmers warn that the country risks having to import more coffee than it exports over the next few years unless more is done to increase production.
“The domestic market has grown tremendously as we’re now receiving far more orders from local coffee shops than in previous years,” said Wedya Julianti of the Kawisari coffee plantation in East Java. Julianti said that Kawisari previously exported much of its harvest; now, the farm sells almost its entire production domestically.
Indonesia produces only a quarter as much coffee per hectare as nearby Vietnam, mainly due to higher costs for fertilizer and seeds, an aging workforce, and climate change. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the country’s coffee output fell 24% during 2023-24 because of bad weather.
“Our robusta crops remain highly vulnerable to extreme weather, particularly heavy rains during harvest,” Julianti said. “Without government support for research and fertilizers, many Indonesian coffee farmers won’t survive, hurting the country’s coffee productivity.”
‘Starbucks’ Latest Strategic Pivot Involves Less Automation, More Baristas’ – via CBS News
Since September 2024, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol has been pushing a set of initiatives to turn things around as the chain struggles with declining sales and lower foot traffic. The plan, which he called “Back to Starbucks,” aims to return the brand to its “coffeehouse roots” with more comfy chairs and less focus on mobile ordering and drive-thrus.
“We’re refocusing on what has always set Starbucks apart — a welcoming coffeehouse where people gather, and where we serve the finest coffee, handcrafted by our skilled baristas,” Niccol wrote in an open letter at the time of the announcement. “This is our enduring identity. We will innovate from here.”
It turns out that, for Niccol, to innovate means to innovate less.
Last week, Niccol announced Starbucks would hit pause on a series of technological upgrades called the Siren Craft System. Last week, he told a group of Wall Street analysts that they’d pause rollout of the system and focus on hiring more baristas.
Starbucks unveiled the Siren Craft System in July 2024, a collection of digital tools and intuitive workflow changes designed to streamline drink preparation and get beverages out faster. Starbucks posited the system as a way to cut down on wait times and anticipate busy periods—but now, Niccol is giving the system the ax, at least for now.
Niccol announced that the company would focus on hiring and employment practices, like making it easier for baristas to swap shifts, and less on automation and innovative technologies.
“What we’re discovering is the equipment doesn’t solve the customer experience that we need to provide, but rather staffing the stores and deploying with this technology behind it does,” Niccol said during the call with the analysts.
One of the main issues raised by Starbucks Workers United during its multi-year unionization campaign has been understaffed stores and management reducing hours for unionized employees. “Maybe instead of learning the hard way that automation and AI is a waste of time and money,” the union wrote on Bluesky, “you finalize contracts with us that address understaffing and other issues that actually affect our stores?”
More News
‘New Research Reveals Benefits of Regenerative Coffee Production’ – via Global Coffee Report
‘Chinese Tea Hub Branches into Coffee as Tastes Change’ – via France 24
‘Final Standings from the 2025 World Coffee Roasting Championship’ – via Daily Coffee News
‘A 400-year-old Tea and Coffee Shop Faces Closure in Amsterdam as Tourism Stokes Price Rises’ – via CNN
‘Royal Coffee Opens Office and Cupping Lab in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’ – via Daily Coffee News
‘Nominations Are Now Open For The Sprudge Twenty Class Of 2025’ – via Sprudge
The Week in Corporate Coffeewashing
The U.K.’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned ads for Lavazza’s Eco Caps coffee pods. Why? Because they “gave the misleading impression that the pods could be composted at home, when in fact they could only be composted in an industrial setting,” reported Josie Clark for PA Media.
The ad for Lavazza’s coffee pods told consumers that they could enjoy a “coffee shop taste in compostable capsules for your home,” language that the advertising watchdog deemed to be misleading. The ASA also banned a search ad for Dualit’s “compostable coffee bags,” saying that the language in the ad implied that the bags were home-compostable.
Lavazza responded to the ASA, saying that “consumers would understand ‘compostable’ to mean that a product was made of compostable material, and not necessarily that it was compostable domestically,” Clark wrote. The company pointed to its website which stated that the pods were industrially compostable.
However, the ASA ruled that the two brands’ marketing should have been clearer. “We know that when it comes to making purchasing decisions, the public are keen to make choices with the environment in mind,” the ASA said in a statement. “It’s important that brands are clear about how easy it is to dispose of products in an environmentally friendly way, so people aren’t misled.”
Is Coffee Good For You?
Research has shown that coffee can help us as we age, boosting cognitive function and potentially even extending our lives.
Now, scientists are finding even more links between coffee and aging. New research from the Netherlands has found that drinking 4-6 cups of coffee daily is associated with a reduced risk of frailty. Researchers defined frailty as the presence of three or more criteria in older adults including weight loss, weakness, exhaustion, slow walking speed, and low physical activity.
The study, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, followed over 1,000 adults aged 55+ over seven years as part of the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (LASA). Researchers found that higher coffee consumption was associated with lower overall odds of frailty, which they surmise is due to coffee’s abundance of antioxidants. Other possible reasons include that coffee could reduce the progression of sarcopenia, an age-related condition associated with frailty.
“Our findings highlight the possible beneficial association between daily coffee consumption and reduced risk of frailty in later life in the older population,” said lead author Margreet R. Olthof from the Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute. “Coffee consumption may thus enhance healthy aging, but it is important we also explore further dietary interventions, to ensure older adults can continue to live fulfilling lives.”
Meanwhile, as of April 28, coffee is officially healthy. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration announced a few months ago that, so long as it has fewer than five calories, coffee can be labeled “healthy.” The FDA ruling came out on February 24 but was delayed due to the incoming Trump administration’s freeze order on new regulations—a standard move by new administrations that wish to review impending rules.
Now, the freeze is over, and brands can legally label their coffee products as healthy.
National Coffee Association CEO William “Bill” Murray praised the decision to label coffee healthy, saying in January that the “FDA is absolutely right that including coffee in the definition of ‘healthy’ can help consumers choose beverages that help maintain healthy diets.”
