BE A STAR - BUCK THE TREND!

Starbucks set for city...

COFFEE giant Starbucks is said to be looking to open a store in Lancaster. A company representative said: "Should a suitable location become available we would be very keen to be part of the local community." The Seattle-based company has more than 6,000 outlets across the world.

THE ROASTER'S RIPOSTE!

BE A STAR - BUCK THE TREND! I feel I should register our dismay at the news of the impending and seemingly inevitable arrival of Starbucks on our Lancastrian high streets. I guess it was only to be a matter of time, as they cast their insatiable gaze in our direction, marching on with their inexorable expansion, like some Java-fuelled, Mocha-clad storm-troopers looking to establish a coffee-break to last a thousand years! Just what is the motive to keep duplicating and spreading like a virus, with all the strength and guile that comes with such colossal financial muscle? It can't be to strip every last vestige of individual identity and character from each new host and turn it into yet another identically homogenised clone town, surely? Let’s hope it’s not intended to price all the independents off the high street, in the certain knowledge that the herd mentality will prevail for most customers, especially the younger more impressionable demographic, to flock to a comfort zone of international branding that will neatly hoover up each last iota of disposable income, leaving the independent cafe sector struggling to survive on the remaining crumbs?

This surely can’t be the case because they say they are “keen to be part of the local community … should a certain location become available” (now, I wonder where that could be?!) Perhaps they are unaware that the local café community of Lancaster, Morecambe and surrounding rural hinterland has been served with very high quality speciality teas and coffees for the past 170 years? Perhaps local people might like to support and patronise some of our excellent establishments up and down the region who promote locally sourced food and drink, generating more growth and spreading the wealth around the local economy. We’ve all seen the effects recently of being tied into a nervous and unforgiving global economy. I’m not suggesting we do what the citizens of Beijing have just done by kicking Starbucks out of the Forbidden City as a stand against the dominance of American cultural imperialism but let’s celebrate and encourage our individual status and proud heritage of enjoying locally artisan roasted coffees that are the envy of many a town. We may have been going for 170 years but we’ve only just begun … We may only have the one outlet as opposed to 14,000 (and rising!) but isn’t that all the more reason to look after our own?

Ian Steel, Master Roaster, J. Atkinson & Co., Speciality Teas & Coffees, China St Est 1837

posted by ..."atkinsons"... at 3:00 pm