Starbucks vs McDonald's -- Who thought this was a good matchup?
In a 10 Jan 2007 post, Raffi Melkonian of Crescat Sententia predicts that Starbucks will look more like a chump than a champ in the breakfast boxing square:
My newest prediction? Starbucks' effort to corner some of the breakfast market will fail utterly. And, as a bonus prediction/observation, someone at Mcdonald's will notice that the following sentence corresponds with precisely no one's reasons for liking Mcdonald's (and I do like McDonald's):
'We’re back there cracking eggs and frying bacon,” he said. “There is nothing like hot, freshly cooked food, and our customers appreciate that.”
(As with all Crescat linkage, since they're too f'in lazy to set up permalinks, this is the best one can do on lj.)
His assessment includes a link to the article The Breakfast Wars in the Dining & Wine section of the New York Times of the same date. This article discusses the difficulties that Starbucks faces in even entering the arena, let alone taking on the House That Kroc Built:
In samples from around New York City last week, both the Starbucks sandwiches and Egg McMuffins offered the virtues of any good egg sandwich: the salty, savory contrast of soft egg, molten cheese and chewy bread. Both the ham and the sausage patty at Starbucks were meatier and less greasy than the meats at McDonald’s, and there was surprisingly little difference in the taste of the eggs - both had almost no flavor.
I pretty much find it a non-issue -- when the employees gather up orders and send someone off to the Kolache Factory* to get breakfast, you know whether or not you should bother tasting what's on offer. I heartily agree. McDonald's is an awfully low target for Starbucks to shoot for, and they can't even hit that.
Worse, the article strongly implies that Starbucks will be relying heavily on parbaked and other not-quite-fully-cooked-before-freezing techniques to enable this gambit. The process is pretty self-explanatory:
My newest prediction? Starbucks' effort to corner some of the breakfast market will fail utterly. And, as a bonus prediction/observation, someone at Mcdonald's will notice that the following sentence corresponds with precisely no one's reasons for liking Mcdonald's (and I do like McDonald's):
'We’re back there cracking eggs and frying bacon,” he said. “There is nothing like hot, freshly cooked food, and our customers appreciate that.”
(As with all Crescat linkage, since they're too f'in lazy to set up permalinks, this is the best one can do on lj.)
His assessment includes a link to the article The Breakfast Wars in the Dining & Wine section of the New York Times of the same date. This article discusses the difficulties that Starbucks faces in even entering the arena, let alone taking on the House That Kroc Built:
In samples from around New York City last week, both the Starbucks sandwiches and Egg McMuffins offered the virtues of any good egg sandwich: the salty, savory contrast of soft egg, molten cheese and chewy bread. Both the ham and the sausage patty at Starbucks were meatier and less greasy than the meats at McDonald’s, and there was surprisingly little difference in the taste of the eggs - both had almost no flavor.
I pretty much find it a non-issue -- when the employees gather up orders and send someone off to the Kolache Factory* to get breakfast, you know whether or not you should bother tasting what's on offer. I heartily agree. McDonald's is an awfully low target for Starbucks to shoot for, and they can't even hit that.
Worse, the article strongly implies that Starbucks will be relying heavily on parbaked and other not-quite-fully-cooked-before-freezing techniques to enable this gambit. The process is pretty self-explanatory:
- Prepare product from ingredients.
- Cook until almost done (80-95%, depending on specifics of process).
- Flash-freeze using some technology. The article indicates that Starbucks has chosen some relatively new nitrogen-based freezing technique that reduces the adulteration inherent in the freezing.
- Thaw and cook the product, providing a quasi-fresh product which stupid people (or simply people who don't know any better because they've never tasted the fresh version of the product) can be fooled into thinking that this is as good as freshly-made in store.
- Part these suckers from their dollars, enriching yourself and keeping them alive for another day of shearing.