(New York) Coffee giant Starbucks has never sold as many drinks and snacks as in the last quarter of 2021, but the group has also had to deal with inflation, additional costs linked to Omicron and a market tense work.
Posted at 7:07 p.m.
The chain, which has already increased part of its prices in October and January, plans additional increases during the year to limit the impact, indicated its general manager, Kevin Johnson, during a conference telephone on Tuesday.
The distributor of cappuccinos, iced teas and snacks soared 19% to $8.1 billion in the first quarter of its fiscal year that ended Jan. 2, a level not seen before.
But “we also faced extraordinary cost pressure, which affected our margin,” Johnson said.
The group’s net profit jumped 31% to $816 million, but on a per-share basis and excluding special items, investors’ preferred measure, profit disappointed.
The spread of the Omicron variant has notably led to additional costs, for example by amplifying the labor shortage in the group’s supply chain.
The company also paid more to continue to pay its employees infected with the virus and having to stay at home, while recruiting and training new arrivals.
Starbucks expects supply chain issues “to persist in the near term,” Johnson said.
While the group is facing growing demands from employees wishing to unionize in the United States, the manager did not directly mention the subject on Tuesday evening.
“We remain convinced that the $1 billion investment in employee salaries that we announced (in October) is the right long-term investment to ensure that we have the best talent to support our business,” a- he pointed out.
The group then indicated that it wanted to increase the average salary of its employees in the United States by the summer of 2022 to 17 dollars per hour, with a minimum wage of between 15 and 23 dollars depending on the region.