All the top moments from the event, plus the films shown onstage and more.

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Top 5 things you might have missed at the 2019 Starbucks shareholder meeting

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11:55 a.m. PDT It’s a tradition at the Annual Meeting to have a surprise musical guest, and Starbucks ceo Kevin Johnson closed Wednesday’s shareholder event by introducing “one of Washington’s greatest treasures,” special musical guest Brandi Carlile.

“At today’s meeting we’ve explored stories of the human experience,” Johnson said. “She is one of the best lyrical storytellers in music today, a woman who combines her art with her personal mission.”

Singer-songwriter Carlile is a three-time Grammy Award winner and seven-time Grammy Award nominee. 

“It doesn’t feel like noon,” Carlile said. “This feels like a rock-and-roll show.” 

Before she began, someone from the back of the theater called, “I love you, Brandi!”

“I love you, too,” Carlile said, laughing. She and her bandmates performed “The Story” and “The Joke.” Then Carlile performed “The Mother” solo, a song she wrote for her oldest daughter, Evangeline.

“It was an honor to play for you,” Carlile said, as she got a standing ovation from the room. “Thank you, Starbucks. This made my whole day.”

Telling great stories: Introducing Starbucks Productions

11:49 a.m. PDT “As Starbucks partners pursue good, they create so many inspiring stories,” said Kevin Johnson, Starbucks chief executive officer, as he described a new initiative to find, tell and curate stories of humanity and inspiration.

“This year, we assembled a small, talented, in-house team to help tell stories that celebrate the human experience,” he said. 

For a sense of the kind of stories the team is working on, watch this trailer that Johnson described as highlighting projects in the pipeline like: <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/hingakawa-a-starbucks-productions-documentary-short/">Hingakawa</a>, a documentary about two women after the Rwandan genocide, where coffee production bridges unimaginable divides; <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/productions/to-be-human/">To Be Human</a>, a series in which we meet our customers where they are – living lives with extraordinary meaning; and another focused on the profound joy and passion of the community that is world football:

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11:43 a.m. PDT Last year at the shareholder meeting, Starbucks outlined commitments to make coffee the first sustainable agriculture product and to serve it in sustainable packages. Starbucks agronomists continue to make progress, in partnership with Conservation International, on the sustainability of coffee, said Kevin Johnson, Starbucks chief executive officer, at Wednesday’s Annual Meeting in Seattle.

The company also has donated 30 million disease-resistant coffee trees to farmers around the world and invested $50 million in the Starbucks Global Farmer Fund to help farmers operate their business. 

“We cannot do this alone,” he said. “We will continue to work with industry and governments around the world to address climate change.”

Starbucks commitment to the pursuit of good also means strengthening communities, he said.

In the last two years, more than 15 million Starbucks meals have been donated to those in need through the Food Share program. Locally, in Seattle, Starbucks worked with the community to enable six family shelters operated by Mary’s Place.

“These are just a few of the examples of how we are a different kind of company, with a different kind of mindset,” he said. 

Starbucks works toward global gender equity in pay

11:38 a.m. PDT As Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer, returned to the stage at Wednesday’s shareholder meeting, he said that there’s one more important element of the Starbucks brand that he wants to close with – the importance of doing good.

“We are believers who understand that the pursuit of profit is not in conflict with the pursuit of doing good,” he said. “Doing good is what inspires the believers and it is authentic to who we are.” 

It begins with creating opportunity for Starbucks partners, he said, noting that over the past three years, Starbucks has hired more than 22,000 veterans and military spouses and 75,000 young adults through the Opportunity Youth initiative. And 12,000 partners are pursing a free college degree through the Starbucks College Achievement Program.

But “we are not just creating opportunities, we are creating equal opportunities,” he said. 

Last year, Starbucks announced it had <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2018/starbucks-pay-equity-for-partners/">achieved 100 percent gender and race pay equity</a> in the United States, where nationally women make <a href="http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/in-focus/csw61/equal-pay">80 cents to every dollar</a> a man makes.

Johnson said that company has maintained that standard in the U.S. for the second year and also verified that it has gender equity in pay in China and Canada. Starbucks has made a commitment to working to closing the gender pay gap around the globe. 

“We are not just creating opportunities, we are creating equal opportunities,” he said. <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/pay-equity-around-the-globe/">Read more</a>

11:36 a.m. PDT Starbucks partners are the common thread, the thread that binds, said Roz Brewer, chief operating officer and group president for the Americas, at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders Wednesday in Seattle.

Partners “should feel empowered to make connections that are personal, inspired and positive. They should feel supported in having fewer administrative tasks, greater clarity on what’s important and more time to make meaningful connections,” Brewer said. 

Yet over the years, as the business has become more complicated, it has also complicated their jobs. This is why Starbucks is working hard to streamline – to reduce the time partners spend on manual tasks and to align their hours with store traffic flow.

Brewer said partner engagement was at its highest just after Starbucks closed its stores for anti-bias training last May. The opportunities will continue later this year, when the company will introduce a new curriculum developed in partnership with Arizona State University (ASU) faculty and outside diversity experts that focuses on empathy, courage, and inclusion. In addition, 12,000 store managers will gather in Chicago in September for a leadership conference, in nearly 10 years. 

“We know this will be a defining moment for galvanizing our partners around our mission and values. Together, we’ll build on conversations about taking ownership and making best moments for our customers,” Brewer said. “We’re in the people business serving coffee. Our success rises and falls on human connection.”

11:31 a.m. PDT Decades ago, Howard Schultz, now Starbucks chairman emeritus, shared his vision for the third place, said Roz Brewer, chief operating officer. He envisioned the stores as places where people could take a break from the busy pace of life, have conversations with friends and have a great cup of coffee.

It’s still the guiding vision today, she said on stage at Wednesday’s Starbucks shareholder meeting in Seattle. Even as customers and the company have changed and evolved, as people’s lives have gotten busier and the Starbucks has grown to offer a more robust menu, the third place is more vital than ever, she stressed.

“This reality inspires us to lead with a growth mindset and to reinvest in our partners, customers and company,” she said. “At the same time, the vitality of our mission and place in the world challenges us to connect with customers on a deeper level ... to ensure we always see the humanity in every customer who walks through our front doors.” 

Reimagining the third place of today means focusing on three attributes: convenience, comfort and connection. It’s about “listening to our customers so we can better position our business now and for the future.”

Last summer, the company began exploring what customers and partners needed in different markets across the country and making changes to some stores.

“And yet… no matter how much we innovate… perhaps the most important insight is this: 

 “We must always feel like Starbucks,” Brewer said. “Our relationship with our customers starts with the moment they think of us. They connect with us through their barista and the quality of what’s in the cup they take with them. 

“Their third place is everywhere they’re holding our cup.” 

11: 24 a.m. PDT Roz Brewer, chief operating officer and group president for the Americas, said growth means continuing to build on the company’s foundation with innovation, including new forays into beverage development, delivery and digital transformation.

On stage at Wednesday’s Starbucks Annual Meeting of Shareholders in Seattle, Brewer said the popular Nitro beverage is now available in almost half of the stores in the U.S, and Starbucks now offers delivery in 12 countries, including China, Japan, the United Kingdom and Mexico. In the United States, Starbucks Delivers is now available in nearly 1,600 stores in seven major markets, and soon in Seattle.

On the digital front, the Starbucks Rewards loyalty program has grown more than 25 percent over the last two years, significant given that the program’s 16 million members now drives 40 percent of sales in the U.S., she said. Next month Starbucks is enhancing its rewards program to give members even more flexibility and choice in redeeming their stars, Brewer said. 

“I’m thrilled with the headway we’ve made, driven by the passion and hard work of our partners,” Brewer said. “And we see it in markets all around the world.”

Brewer recently traveled to the opening of the Starbucks Reserve Roastery in Tokyo, Japan – the highest sales day in the history of the company. Starbucks continues to grow in China, opening a new store about every 15 hours and being named one of the country’s best employers four years in a row. Last week, Starbucks opened its 30,000th store worldwide in Shenzen.

“Growing our store base remains essential to our brand,” Brewer said. “It’s truly remarkable to think how we’ve grown from a single store in Seattle where customers scooped roasted beans for brewing at home, to serve a city halfway around the world with a full menu of craft beverages and delicious food. And they can have their Starbucks delivered, too!”

‘To Be Human’: Our stores, your stories

11:12 a.m. PDT Roz Brewer, chief operating officer and group president, opened her remarks with customer voices from around the United States. The customers were interviewed as part of the Starbucks Productions “To Be Human” storytelling series.

<a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/productions/to-be-human/">To Be Human</a> aims to connect more deeply with the incredible and diverse humans who occupy the third place. By hearing and sharing these stories, we celebrate the grace, humor, courage and grit that exists at tables and in crowds at every single one of the 30,000 Starbucks stores. Each individual story is unique but together they tell a larger story about our world – what we value, what we fear, how we can better understand each other and what it means to be human.

Shareholders meet new strawless lid and compostable, recyclable cup prototype

10:57 a.m. PDT Michelle Burns introduced shareholders to <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/say-hello-to-the-lid-that-will-replace-a-billion-straws-a-year/">the new Starbucks strawless cold drink lid</a> that will eventually replace more than a billion straws a year.

The senior vice president of global coffee &amp; tea said the new cold drink lid uses 9 percent less plastic than the former lid and straw combined and can still accommodate a straw, which will be available upon request, for those who need to use one. In July 2018 Starbucks announced it would phase out plastic straws from its more than 30,000 stores worldwide by 2020. The new lightweight, strawless cold drink lid will begin rolling out to stores in the United States and Canada this summer, an important milestone for eliminating plastic straws.

“We have made great progress over the year on sustainability practices and materials,” Burns said. 

The new cold drink lid uses 9 percent less plastic than the former lid and straw combined and can still accommodate a straw, which will be available upon request, for those who need to use one, Corlett said. Starbucks is currently testing alternative materials to replace plastic straws as part of its goals to eliminate plastic straws by 2020 and to double the recyclability, compostability and reusability of its cups and packaging by 2022.

Burns also gave shareholders updates on other sustainability fronts, including progress on a “next-generation” cup, as the audience sipped Pike Place® Roast from a prototype cup that is both recyclable and compostable. Burns said over the next year, customers in New York, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver and London will help test several cups from the 12 <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/press/2019/closed-loop-partners-announces-12-winners-of-the-nextgen-cup-challenge/">NextGen Cup Challenge winners</a> announced earlier this month – all cities that support both recycling and composting.

Starbucks initiated a collaboration called the <a href="https://www.nextgenconsortium.com/">NextGen Consortium</a> last spring with partners such as McDonald’s, The Coca-Cola Company, Nestlé, Yum! Brands, Wendy’s and the World Wildlife Fund to not only explore next-generation recycling and composting technologies, but to work with municipalities to increase acceptance of these green cups.

Starbucks explores using technology to trace the coffee journey

10:50 a.m. PDT Michelle Burns, senior vice president of global coffee &amp; tea, previewed a coffee traceability feature for the Starbucks mobile app on stage at the Starbucks Annual Meeting of Shareholders Wednesday.

Eventually customers will be able to use the Starbucks mobile app to trace the journey of their favorite packaged coffees. Burns demonstrated the <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/knowledge-is-valuable-coffee-journey-going-digital-for-customers-farmers/">potential power of digital traceability</a> on stage by scanning a bag of Pike Place beans, the coffee served in a tasting to those at the meeting.

The shareholders got to see the path of the coffee beans in their cup from where the beans were grown (farms in Colombia and Brazil) to where they were roasted (Kent, Wash.). Burns also showed how a technological traceability tool could potentially include information about brewing methods, ethical and sustainable sourcing and tips for brewing the perfect cup.

“Our passion and our love for coffee – from the ground our coffees come from, to the farmers who handpick the coffee cherries, to the expert coffee roasters who roast each bean to perfection, to the talented baristas who handcraft each beverage for the perfect cup – each step reflects both our Starbucks heritage and a unwavering commitment to a brighter future for our farmers, our partners and our customers,” Burns said. 

A year ago, Starbucks announced the company’s commitment to developing innovative technology platforms to understand the potential for farmer empowerment and to connect customers to the journey of their favorite coffees. 

The world’s largest Starbucks run

10:45 a.m. PDT Attendees sip Starbucks Pike Place Roast during a coffee tasting led Michelle Burns, senior vice president of Global Coffee and Tea at Wednesday’s shareholders meeting in Seattle. Because what would a meeting be without coffee?

Coffee tasting by the numbers

Nurturing the next generation of coffee farmers

10:38 a.m. PDT A short film highlighting a fourth-generation coffee farmer in Guatemala shows the importance of continuing support for family farms around the world. <a href="https://stories.starbucks.com/stories/2019/nurturing-family-coffee-for-next-generation-of-farmers/">Learn more and watch it here</a>.

Kevin Johnson on stage backed by row of partners in green aprons, with the words "The Believers" on screen

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