Starbucks to go 'back to the future'

SEATTLE, March 19 (UPI) -- Starbucks Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz promised innovation and a return to the company's roots in an interview with USA Today.

The world's largest coffee seller with 7,100 company owned stores in the United States and 8,588 franchises worldwide, mostly plans to return to grinding coffee beans, Schultz told USA Today on Tuesday.

The company boasts 45 million weekly returning customers, the paper said. But its sales dropped 3 percent in the first quarter of 2008 and its stock has lost 54 percent of its value since May 2006.

Key to its recovery, Schultz said, is a "back to the future" approach of returning to grinding beans in the store and letting the smell of coffee reach its customers.

The chain moved to pre-ground, packaged beans 10 years ago. "That turned out to be our Achilles' heel," Schultz told the paper.

Schultz, who replaced CEO Jim Donald 11 weeks ago to return to the post he previously held, said the problems with the company were "self-induced."

"That's why I think we'll be able to fix them," he said.