June 15, 2021
Across the world, customers and baristas are taking to social media to bemoan not only shortages of key ingredients for popular Starbucks drinks, like peach and guava juices, but also a lack of iced and cold-brew coffee, breakfast foods and cake pops, and even cups, lids and straws. A video on TikTok featured what appeared to be a group of employees screaming in frustration over a list of ingredients that the shop had run out of — including sweet cream, white mocha, mango dragon fruit and “every food item.” The caption also said they were low on cold brew and the “will to live.
Starbucks is running out of ingredients for Very Berry Hibiscus Refreshers and almond croissants after being one of the clear winners of the pandemic economy. During lockdowns, the coffee chain quickly shifted from its position as a “third place,” where people could linger to work or meet up for long chats, to a focus on frictionless transactions with customers ordering through mobile apps and drive-thrus.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Starbucks said the company was experiencing “temporary supply shortages” of some of its products. She said the shortages varied by location, with some stores experiencing “outages of various items at the same time.” She added that the company was working with its vendors to restock the items as soon as possible, and that the supply-chain issues had not affected prices. Although most people are familiar with the problems in the global supply chain to some extent, some Starbucks customers are still shocked — even incensed — by their inability to get their coffee exactly how they want it.
Starbucks did something remarkable: taking a really ordinary product, coffee, and remaking it as an identifier of class, of culture, of discernment and of knowledge and it is a way to communicate something about yourself to other people. While it has become more complicated over time, that drink still says, ‘I deserve a break in my life. I can afford to waste money on coffee. But Customers and baristas were reporting shortages of key ingredients or foods in stores.