Starbucks is serving up an extra ounce of affection with some of its drinks this Valentine’s Day, writing thoughtful messages and drawing bespoke artwork on some lucky Starbucks® Delivers orders over Valentine’s Day and weekend.

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On the 12th, 13th, and 14th February, customers ordering via Starbucks Delivers may receive an extra hand-crafted surprise, as partners in select Starbucks stores across the UK, France, Spain, and the Netherlands show off their artistic talent and connect with customers to add a special touch of magic this Valentine’s.

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<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2021/a-whole-latte-love-romantic-notes-on-customers-cups-this-valentines/" data-type="URL" data-id="https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2021/a-whole-latte-love-romantic-notes-on-customers-cups-this-valentines/" target="_blank">Last year</a>, Starbucks partners across the UK showed us their impressive creative talents on delivery cups and bags, to surprise and delight customers, and add an extra smile to their day.

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Available in the UK, France, Spain, and the Netherlands for a limited time, at selected stores, on delivery orders.

Sending a whole latte love this Valentine’s Day - Starbucks Stories EMEA

Starbucks Stories EMEA

Sending a whole latte love this Valentine’s Day

Starbucks is serving up an extra ounce of affection with some of its drinks this Valentine’s Day, writing thoughtful messages and drawing bespoke artwork on some lucky Starbucks® Delivers orders over Valentine’s Day and weekend. On the 12th, 13th, and 14th February, customers ordering via Starbucks Delivers may receive an extra hand-crafted surprise, as partners […]

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https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2022/sending-a-whole-latte-love/

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Here’s what’s launching for Holiday 2021 at Starbucks EMEA…

It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the launch of Starbucks Holiday menu.

Featuring all your favourite classics – including the Gingerbread and Toffee Nut lattes, this year also sees the arrival of some exciting new additions joining the line-up too.

In select markets and with choice varying by country across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region, Starbucks 2021 Holiday menu will see the launch of the brand new, and already making waves White Chocolate Chestnut latte, Caramel Waffle latte and Chocolatey Gingerbread latte, as well as the Fudge Brownie Hot Chocolate.

Available from 4 November 2021 across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, for a limited time, with selected products varying by market.

Starbucks Red Cup season has arrived – alongside a stellar new Holiday menu - Starbucks Stories EMEA

Starbucks Red Cup season has arrived – alongside a stellar new Holiday menu

Here’s what’s launching for Holiday 2021 at Starbucks EMEA… It’s the most wonderful time of the year: the launch of Starbucks Holiday menu. Featuring all your favourite classics – including the Gingerbread and Toffee Nut lattes, this year also sees the arrival of some exciting new additions joining the line-up too. In select markets and […]

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https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2021/starbucks-red-cup-season-has-arrived/

Autumn aficionados, your time has come. Cue the 2021 return of the iconic autumn beverage… the one, the only, the original Pumpkin Spice Latte. Synonymous with the season, we can practically hear the crunch of leaves as we say a fond farewell to summer.

Enter the original #PSL, which with every silky-smooth sip combines the nostalgic flavours of Starbucks Espresso Roast, pumpkin pie flavoured sauce and steamed milk, topped with whipped cream and pumpkin pie spices – cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves.

For 2021, Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte will be hitting Starbucks stores across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa from 2 September 2021.

Back in 2003, Starbucks iconic Pumpkin Spice Latte was born. The first of its kind, the PSL is the product of numerous Goldilocks-style tests - including pumpkin pies, fresh pumpkins, tinned pumpkin and all manner of spices - the team managed to find a unique and original final formulation that was just right.

Since then, the beloved icon has grown in popularity year on year, becoming one of the most popular Starbucks seasonal beverages around the world.

Over the years, Starbucks has also evolved the drink to align with shifting consumer trends, from making it vegan in 2018, to the addition of Vegan Whipped Topping in 2020 allowing customers to make their PSL vegan from head to toe.

Marking the end of the summer months with a warm welcome into Autumn, pumpkin heads that prefer to go for an icy cold beverage can opt for the PSL Frappuccino® Blended Beverage, a dreamy customization that combines two Starbucks beverage icons.

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte will launch on the 2nd September 2021 in the UK and select EMEA markets.

It’s available in store, via Starbucks Delivers, and in select markets, on the Starbucks Rewards app.

'tis the #PSL season again! - Starbucks Stories EMEA

Autumn aficionados, your time has come. Cue the 2021 return of the iconic autumn beverage… the one, the only, the original Pumpkin Spice Latte. Synonymous with the season, we can practically hear the crunch of leaves as we say a fond farewell to summer. Enter the original #PSL, which with every silky-smooth sip combines the […]

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/sites/17/2021/08/PSL-1-1.png

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2021/tis-the-psl-season-again/

’tis the #PSL season again!

In honour of International Women’s Day, meet Cecilia Valderrama Gómez, Manjula Kahar and Nande Anggun, women who live in different countries but are united in their commitment to improving their communities with the support of The Starbucks Foundation.

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It was a mother’s sacrifice that was nearly unfathomable. In order to save her children, Cecilia Valderrama Gómez knew she would have to send them away. She and her husband and four children lived in El Escobal, a rural area in Colombia that was controlled for 50 years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

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The FARC was known to recruit young children and use them as runners. So, when Valderrama Gómez’s children were between 9 and 13, she sent three of them to stay with family in a safer area where they could go to school and wouldn’t be taken by the FARC.

“I didn’t want them to be at risk,” she said. Years passed, and it wasn’t until the conflict ended two years ago that she saw them again. Her son who wasn’t able to go with the others ended up being conscripted by the FARC and later went to jail.

It’s overwhelming recalling all that she went through living in the shadow of the FARC, she said. Instead, she chooses to focus on the present and work toward the future. Today, “I’m happy and hopeful,” she said. “I have always wanted to help others fight for a better life and to help others get ahead.”

Valderrama Gómez, 52, is doing exactly that as president of the Escobal Women’s Association, an organisation comprised of 16 women, dedicated to improving conditions for the community after the conflict. About half of the families in her community don’t have basic sanitation services. Many don’t have bathrooms. 

That’s now starting to change due to help from a $500,000 grant to Lutheran World Relief from The Starbucks Foundation, which is targeted toward improving sanitation and access to clean water and also creating greater economic opportunity for women in coffee communities in Tolima, Colombia. 

In 2018, The Starbucks Foundation announced a goal of empowering 250,000 women and girls by 2025 in communities where coffee, tea, and cocoa is grown. Since then, the foundation has given nearly $4.6 million dollars to 16 programmes focused on women’s leadership opportunities, economic development, access to water, sanitation, health, education and more. The number of women directly impacted now stands at more than 259,000.

Starbucks currently partners with a number of non-profits around the world who lead the programs, including Barefoot College, CARE, Days for Girls International, Lutheran World Relief (in Colombia and Indonesia), Roger Federer Foundation, Send a Cow, UNICEF Ethical Tea Partnership, Instituto del Café de Costa Rica, Malala Fund and World Relief. 

Fact Sheet: <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/2019/03/Fact-Sheet-The-Starbucks-Foundation-Grants-to-Empowering-Women.pdf">The Starbucks Foundation Grants to Empowering Women</a>

“When you invest in women, you are investing in an entire ecosystem,” said Virginia Tenpenny, vice president of Global Social Impact at Starbucks and executive director of The Starbucks Foundation. “We’re focused on investments that lead to women being empowered, specifically in health, educational opportunities and income, so they can in turn empower their families and communities as well.”

The women of the Escobal Women’s Association may be small in number, but they know how to organise and get things done, a point of pride for Valderrama Gómez. They raise bees and sell the honey locally, providing an income for their families while working toward a goal of being able to sell their honey in the larger cities and grow their customer base. 

They are also about to use those same organisational skills to help facilitate the building of more toilets in her community. Women from her group will meet with families in the area to assess the need. And then they’ll coordinate getting the supplies there via a two-hour journey by donkey.

Valderrama Gómez knows that better sanitation means less sickness and disease. People get sick if the water is contaminated. The closest hospital is miles away. 

“If you have better sanitation, you have better health,” she said. “My hope is to see new projects continue and for the community to really grow, not just in prosperity but in peace.”

That’s the hope of The Starbucks Foundation too, said Tenpenny.

“Women have an instinct to pay it forward,” she said. In honour of International Women’s Day on March 8, meet some of the other women who are working to change the world, one community at a time.

At 3 p.m. each afternoon, about 120 children arrive at Majula Kahar’s home in Assam, India, for her after-school education program. For the next two hours, Kahar teaches them how to read and write. Though Kahar comes from modest means, she does it without pay, committed to helping the children have opportunities she didn’t growing up. 

Like them, Kahar, now 26, grew up on the Moran Tea Estate, the daughter of a tea picker. She attended the local government school when she was a girl, especially unusual for young girls in the region. Due to limited access to school and lack of resources, many children on tea estates who do attend school drop out before high school without being able to read, making aspirations and economic opportunities nearly impossible.

“The after-school programme that these children are a part of is for lower-income groups,” she said. “I feel change will come when it is communicated that education is a largest priority. I want the community to be educated and to value education.”

In many tea communities, education is prioritised for boys, with girls being expected to focus on household chores, she said. But Kahar’s mother, a tea picker whom she calls the core of the family, always placed value on education. She encouraged all three of her children to continue school, even as Kahar saw many of her friends drop out and get married early. 

Kahar went through a training program to learn how to teach children as part of <a href="https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/sourcing/tea">Mercy Corps’ Community Health and Advancement Initiative (CHAI)</a>, supported since 2003 by &nbsp;The Starbucks Foundation. Today she is earning her Bachelor of Arts degree at Moran College to advance access to education for children in her community.&nbsp;

“I always had the desire to be a teacher,” she said. “Education was not a priority on tea estates growing up, and after getting training, I began teaching kids in the community. I quickly saw, after three or four months, an improvement in students. They could now recognise the alphabet and write short sentences. One student even began to sing stories in the classroom to friends. This is the inspiration I see in schools. I am happy that I can contribute to my community and society.”

The number of students who come to Kahar’s classes continues to grow. Many, who are eager for the chance to learn, are bringing their friends. She finds room for them all.

Education, she knows, is the key to unlocking a better life, particularly for girls.

“I want to see women and girls uplifted in parts of the world where they are deprived of education,” she said. “I hope one day the woman will rise and be given importance in the world.”

After she graduates from college, she wants to be a school teacher, which she sees as her path to changing the world. 

It’s early morning and Nande Anggun, 48, has not been to bed yet. As a midwife, she’s accustomed to being up at all hours at the side of women who need her. On this day last week, she’s just helped deliver a baby girl – part of the next generation of women in the Indonesian community that Anggun has devoted her life to helping empower.

In addition to being a midwife for the last 26 years, she also works with young children and the elderly, tends to her farm of 200 coffee trees and is also the treasurer of Pembianaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (PKK), a family welfare organisation led by women focused on helping develop women’s leadership, governance, management, strategic planning and more in their villages. It’s rare for her to get more than six hours of sleep a night, but it’s worth it, she says, because she knows that this is how change happens.

“I’m very proud to participate in community activities because I look for how the women in my community can have a better life,” she said, as she sat in the lobby of her local health clinic. 

In 2018 Lutheran World Relief, which works with PKK, was given a three-year grant from The Starbucks Foundation totalling $500,000 to support women-led community health and hygiene programs for 2,100 households in Indonesian coffee-producing villages. 

PKK is leading a series of workshops where women in the community can discuss various topics about health and family. The group is focused on helping women build, and then advocate, for their own agendas in their lives and communities. Often, she said, the weight of caring for the family and making sure bills are paid falls to women, even when they are working outside the home. 

“Women are considered the responsible person for running a family,” she said. 

She recently led a workshop focused on the roles of women and men in families – and how women can navigate conversations with their husbands about being more involved as fathers and seeing their wives as equals. It sparked a conversation with Anggun’s own husband, whom she said doesn’t always understand why she is so busy volunteering her time. 

She puts her hand to her heart as she talks about what matters – she wants to make things better for those who are coming behind her. Women coming together can be powerful, she said. “It’s not always just about gaining new knowledge, but other women might be thinking about the same things,” she said. That is how change begins.

Her face lights up as she talks about her own children, a 25-year-old daughter and her 21-year-old son. 

“As a mother, I always hope my daughter can hope she has a better life than me. I hope she and her husband can discuss everything about the family,” she said.

In addition to the community workshops, part of the grant is focused toward improving sanitation and access to clean water. Women who volunteer with PKK will be trained to help educate people about better sanitation. Grant dollars will help fund the construction of 18 communal water and sanitation facilities in five communities, featuring a shower, toilet, sink and water storage tank. 

While Anggun has running water at her house, many in her village don’t. When she goes to visit friends who only have latrines and no water, she worries for them, she said. 

Better health, better sanitation and women who are truly supported in their communities are the goals that drive her, she said. “When I grow old and look back, I hope that people will remember the work I’ve done and the love and hope I have for people,” she said.

Just then, someone approaches and Anggun excuses herself. A woman in labour needs her. Another baby, part of the next generation in her community, was about to be born. 

Luz Ruiz Salazar contributed to this story.

3 women changing the world, a community at a time - Starbucks Stories EMEA

3 women changing the world, a community at a time

In honor of International Women’s Day, meet Cecilia Valderrama Gómez, Manjula Kahar and Nande Anggun, women who live in different countries but are united in their commitment to improving their communities with the support of The Starbucks Foundation.

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2020/women-in-coffee-and-tea-communities-2/

In honor of International Women’s Day, meet Cecilia Valderrama Gómez, Manjula Kahar and Nande Anggun, women who live in different countries but are united in their commitment to improving their communities.

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The journey a coffee bean follows from farm to cup is an arduous one. It usually begins high in the hills of the Coffee Belt, a band that wraps around the Earth’s middle between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Bucket by bucket, the beans are hand-picked and processed before trundling down winding roads to cargo ships destined for roasting plants and cafés around the world. 

To get the best beans, buyers from Starbucks have traveled to the source since the first store opened back in 1971. They journeyed to far-flung farms in places in Latin America, Asia and East Africa, taking time to get to know farmers and their communities along the way.&nbsp;&nbsp; 

When Starbucks launched its C.A.F.E. Practices sustainable sourcing program in 2004, the company knew that building on these personal relationships would be critical to the program’s success. It opened its first <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-farmer-support-centers/">Farmer Support Center</a> that same year in San José, Costa Rica, and hired a team of agronomists to bring farmers into the program.

Carlos Mario Rodriguez, director and global head of coffee research and development for Starbucks, was part of that first Farmer Support Center agronomy team. He drove his pickup truck over countless miles of narrow roads to visit farmers and help them with a range of sustainability issues and ensure a long-term supply of quality coffee. He helped them set up their own test plots, showed them how to space trees correctly and offered suggestions to manage erosion and reduce the use of pesticides.&nbsp; 

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William Chacon, owner of the Café Las Peñas farm in Sabanilla, Costa Rica, has been working with Starbucks agronomists for more than 10 years, even when his farm is not selling to Starbucks. 

“There are many problems related to deforestation, and the coffee gets damaged by disease, and so the quality suffers too,” said Chacon. “With Starbucks help, we are producing new varieties of coffee. The quality is good because the leaves and the plants grow healthy.” 

In that first year the Farmer Support Center, 43.5 million pounds of green (unroasted) coffee were purchased from C.A.F.E. Practices-approved suppliers, representing 14.5 percent of total coffee purchases. Each year, purchases under the program continued to grow and Starbucks expanded its network of farmer support. A satellite location in Guatemala City opened in 2006, followed by Rwanda in 2009, Tanzania in 2011 and Colombia in 2012. Field by field, farm by farm – this new approach to sustainable sourcing was taking root.

In 2012, Starbucks opened its sixth Farmer Support Center, and first in Asia, in Yunnan, China’s Pu’er region. Alan Tong was the first agronomist at the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2017/yunnan-single-origin-coffee/">China Farmer Support Center</a>, starting with just 25 coffee growers.

Since then, he and his team have trained nearly 10,000 farmers in China in sustainable farming practices and 1,200 farms are now verified through C.A.F.E. Practices. They are also putting resources toward <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2018/starbucks-deepens-its-commitment-in-yunnan-communities/">creating pathways out of poverty in coffee farming communities</a> across the region.

After opening two more Farmer Support Centers in Ethiopia (2014) and Indonesia (2015), Starbucks’ oldest Farmer Support Center also became its newest. In 2016 the San José agronomy center moved from its downtown office building to a farm 15 miles up a mountain road to the foot of the Poàs Volcano. The 600-acre working farm and visitor’s center at <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2018/coffee-sustainability/">Hacienda Alsacia</a> serves as Starbucks global agronomy research and development center.

“I can show [farmers] how we have been doing things,” said Victor Trejos, general manager of Hacienda Alsacia. “How we have been planting, how we fertilize, soil tests … and how they can do the same.” 

The farm includes 14 hectares dedicated to research. It’s a testing ground to push the boundaries of agronomy research to breed trees that are resistant to coffee leaf rust, or roya, which is ravaging coffee crops in Latin America. The team also analyzes soil, fine tunes pruning techniques, and supports farmers in other ways to increase coffee trees’ quality and productivity. Its findings aren’t kept in a company vault; they are shared freely with researchers and farmers everywhere.

To date, Starbucks has trained more than 52,000 farmers with free access to education and resources through its Farmer Support Centers, with a goal of reaching 200,000 farmers by 2020.&nbsp;Its aspiration is to&nbsp;<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2015/making-coffee-the-worlds-first-sustainably-sourced-agriculture-product/">make coffee the world’s first sustainably sourced agricultural product</a>.

But for Rodriguez, the accomplishment is best measured one farm, one farmer at a time.

“To me, as a professional, as a partner, it’s the best part really when you start working with a particular farmer and see that they are improving their living conditions and being able to keep producing coffee as a good business,” he said. “That’s the best. It’s really something that motivates us.” 

Centred on Sustainability - Starbucks Stories EMEA

How Starbucks provide farmers across the globe free access to education and resources.

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2019/ensuring-access-to-agronomy-education-and-resources/

Centred on Sustainability

Centered on Sustainability

A lot of people, love and science make your morning cup happen.

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At a coffee farm on the side of volcano in Costa Rica, Starbucks is innovating and learning on behalf of the coffee farmers everywhere. All that research is open-source, in pursuit of making coffee the first sustainable agriculture product. It’s a huge undertaking, but one that everyone involved takes personally. 

From seed to cup: The journey to sustainable coffee - Starbucks Stories EMEA

From seed to cup: The journey to sustainable coffee

A lot of people, love and science make your morning cup happen.

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2019/from-seed-to-cup-the-journey-to-sustainable-coffee/

In honor of International Women’s Day, meet Cecilia Valderrama Gómez, Manjula Kahar and Nande Anggun, women who live in different countries but are united in their commitment to improving their communities with the support of The Starbucks Foundation. 

“Because of the conflict, people were living in fear,” she said. “There was a lot of fear in doing just basic activities. We couldn’t dare try to leave the area.” 

Valderrama Gómez, 52, is doing exactly that as president of the Escobal Women’s Association, an organization comprised of 16 women, dedicated to improving conditions for the community after the conflict. About half of the families in her community don’t have basic sanitation services. Many don’t have bathrooms. 

In 2018, The Starbucks Foundation announced a goal of empowering 250,000 women and girls by 2025 in communities where coffee, tea, and cocoa is grown. Since then, the foundation has given nearly $4 million dollars to 11 programs focused on women’s leadership opportunities, economic development, access to water, sanitation, health, education and more. 

Starbucks currently partners with a number of non-profits around the world who lead the programs, including Barefoot College, CARE, Days for Girls International, Lutheran World Relief (in Colombia and Indonesia), Roger Federer Foundation, Send a Cow, UNICEF Ethical Tea Partnership, Instituto del Café’ de Costa Rica, Malala Fund and World Relief.

The women of the Escobal Women’s Association may be small in number, but they know how to organize and get things done, a point of pride for Valderrama Gómez. They raise bees and sell the honey locally, providing an income for their families while working toward a goal of being able to sell their honey in the larger cities and grow their customer base. 

They are also about to use those same organizational skills to help facilitate the building of more toilets in her community. Women from her group will meet with families in the area to assess the need. And then they’ll coordinate getting the supplies there via a two-hour journey by donkey.

“Women have an instinct to pay it forward,” she said. In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, meet some of the other women who are working to change the world, one community at a time.

&nbsp;“The after-school program that these children are a part of is for lower-income groups,” she said. “I feel change will come when it is communicated that education is a largest priority. I want the community to be educated and to value education.”

In many tea communities, education is prioritized for boys, with girls being expected to focus on household chores, she said. But Kahar’s mother, a tea picker whom she calls the core of the family, always placed value on education. She encouraged all three of her children to continue school, even as Kahar saw many of her friends drop out and get married early. &nbsp;

“I always had the desire to be a teacher,” she said. “Education was not a priority on tea estates growing up, and after getting training, I began teaching kids in the community. I quickly saw, after three or four months, an improvement in students. They could now recognize the alphabet and write short sentences. One student even began to sing stories in the classroom to friends.&nbsp; This is the inspiration I see in schools. I am happy that I can contribute to my community and society.”

In addition to being a midwife for the last 26 years, she also works with young children and the elderly, tends to her farm of 200 coffee trees and is also the treasurer of Pembianaan Kesejahteraan Keluarga (PKK), a family welfare organization led by women focused on helping develop women’s leadership, governance, management, strategic planning and more in their villages. It’s rare for her to get more than six hours of sleep a night, but it’s worth it, she says, because she knows that this is how change happens.

In 2018 Lutheran World Relief, which works with PKK, was given a three-year grant from The Starbucks Foundation totaling $500,000 to support women-led community health and hygiene programs for 2,100 households in Indonesian coffee-producing villages. 

Just then, someone approaches and Anggun excuses herself. A woman in labor needs her. Another baby, part of the next generation in her community, was about to be born. 

https://stories.starbucks.com/emea/stories/2019/women-in-coffee-and-tea-communities/

https://stories.starbucks.com/uploads/sites/17/2019/03/IWD2019-UNICEF-1024x683.jpg