Starbucks is no stranger to strategy experiments, from testing the sale of beer and wine to simplifying its logo and dropping the "coffee" from the company's name. Its newest gamble: Paying out $30 million to acquire juice maker Evolution Fresh Inc. — part of a larger effort to expand past coffee and into grocery store aisles. Starbucks plans to offer Evolution juices (which Whole Foods and Costco already carry) both in their cafes and in a new chain of health and wellness stores it plans to launch next year. "We are not just acquiring a juice company," Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz says. "We are using this acquisition to position ourselves, in a broad way, to build a multibillion health and wellness business over time." Good move for Starbucks?
This makes a lot of sense: Buying Evolution "is a logical choice for the chain as it seeks to offer healthier options," says the Associated Press. Evolution is "one of the few larger juice companies that still cracks, peels, presses and squeezes its own fruits and vegetables rather than using pureed or powdered ingredients." It also pasteurizes juice with a special high-pressure process that doesn't require heating, allowing the juice to retain more nutrients. Those unique methods could give Starbucks a "competitive edge" in its drive to woo the health-conscious.
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