Starbucks: health benefits exceed coffee bean costs

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 26, 2005

SEATTLE -- Starbucks Corp., based here, expects to spend more money on health insurance for its employees this year than it will spend on coffee and other raw products for its coffeehouses.

Howard Schultz, Starbucks' chairman, told a gathering of Washington state congressional representatives that the company provides health care to all employees who work more than 20 hours a week and that it has faced double-digit increases in health insurance each year for the past four years.

Schultz called the meeting with Sen. Patty Murray and Rep. Adam Smith, both Democrats, to draw attention to what he said is a growing crisis in health-insurance costs.