Starbucks

It’s just a moment in time – just one hand reaching over the counter to present a cup to another outstretched hand. We make sure everything we do honours that connection – from our commitment to the highest quality coffee in the world, to the way we engage with our customers and communities to do business responsibly. From our beginnings as a single store nearly forty years ago, in every place that we’ve been, and every place that we touch, we’ve tried to make it a little better than we found it. Back then, the company was a single store in Seattle’s historic Pike Place Market. From just a narrow shop front, Starbucks offered some of the world’s finest fresh-roasted whole bean coffees. The name, inspired by Moby Dick, evoked the romance of the high seas and the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders. In 1981, Howard Schultz (Starbucks chairman, president and chief executive officer) had first walked into a Starbucks store. From his first cup of Sumatra, Howard was drawn into Starbucks and joined a year later.