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STARBUCKS COFFEE COMPANY.
Starbucks and its subsidiaries ("Starbucks" or the "Company") include Starbucks Corporation and its wholly owned subsidiaries: The Coffee Connection, Inc. ("The Coffee Connection"), Starbucks New Venture Company ("Starbucks New Venture"), Starbucks Coffee International, Inc. ("SBI"), and Starbucks Holding Company. In 1994, Starbucks acquired all of the capital stock of The Coffee Connection, a roaster/retailer of specialty coffee. Starbucks New Venture was created in fiscal 1994 to develop ready-to-drink coffee-based beverages in partnership with the Pepsi-Cola Company. In October 1995, SBI was created to pursue development of Starbucks stores outside of North America, and Starbucks Holding Company was created to enter into a joint venture with Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. to develop and distribute Starbucks premium coffee ice creams. .
Howard Schultz, 42, is the founder of the Company and has been chairman of the board and chief executive officer since its inception in 1987. The Company began with eleven Seattle stores and fewer than one hundred employees. It has since exploded to a half billion dollar company serving three million cups of coffee per week in one thousand stores throughout the country. Schultz believes his company will succeed well into the twenty-first century. He states, "One of the things that you can't measure on a balance sheet or on a financial statement is the soul of Starbucks." .
Mr. Schultz got his start with Starbucks Coffee & Tea, which doled out popular free samples of coffee brewed and sold at a shop in Seattle's Pikes Place Market. Starbucks was founded in 1971 by three academics who had become enamored of the Berkeley, California food scene. The teachers moved into Seattle and opened a shop named Starbucks after Captain Starbuck, the coffee-loving first mate in Moby Dick.
