Starbucks plans to cut 30% of its menu

Starbucks is planning to cut its food and beverage offerings by 30 per cent over the course of this year, aiming to simplify operations and speed up service.

It’s not yet clear what items will be taken off the menu, but in a conference call with investors on Tuesday, chairman and CEO Brian Niccol said that dialing back the menu would free the coffee giant up to ensure they have “the right food offerings in the morning.”

“And then, also, we’re looking at how do we provide the right kind of snack/food offerings as you get further into the day,” he said, according to a transcription of the meeting reported by Fortune.

Starbucks will also add digital menus to all of its company-owned U.S. stores over the next 18 months, to make ordering options clearer and make it easier to shift its offerings depending on the time of day, Niccol said.

A spokesperson for Starbucks Canada said they are also planning to deploy digital menu boards in Canada across newly opened company-owned stores, beginning this year.

Starbucks’ same-store sales — or sales at locations open at least a year — fell four per cent compared to the same period last year. But the decline was less than the 5.5 per cent analysts anticipated, according to FactSet. It was also better than the previous quarter, when global same-store sales were down seven per cent.

Niccol, who joined the company in September, said customer-focused changes — such as a decision to stop charging extra for non-dairy milk and a streamlining of the menu — were helping to improve service and drive store traffic.

Niccol said the company is also adding staff to some stores and experimenting with ordering algorithms that prioritize in-store customers and better pace mobile orders.

“The place where we run into problems, frankly, is the fact that there is just no gating on the mobile orders,” Niccol said. “All these orders come flooding in faster than even our customer can get there. So all these drinks are sitting on the counter, and it’s at the expense of providing any other experience for a customer that’s right in the store.”

Starbucks is trying to re-establish itself as a gathering place, and recently announced that it will start using ceramic mugs and offering in-store customers free refills of coffee or tea.

The company is also trying to appeal to customers with a new rule that requires people to buy something if they want to hang out or use the restroom.