Starbucks sales are back, but its supplies are not

Tasha Leverette was in the mood for her favorite drink from Starbucks, an iced peach-green-tea lemonade.

When she went through the drive-through of her usual Starbucks in Atlanta three weeks ago, though, she was told they couldn't make the drink because they had no peach-flavored juice. Shrugging it off, she drove to another store. And another. And another.

Each stop brought disappointment. None of the locations had the integral ingredient.

"I said to them, 'This is the Peach State, right?' " said Leverette, 33, who owns a public relations firm. "It's surprising because Starbucks always seems like it has anything and everything you need."

Across the country, customers and baristas are taking to social media to bemoan shortages not only of key ingredients for popular Starbucks drinks such as peach and guava juices but also a lack of iced and cold-brew coffee, breakfast foods and cake pops, and even cups, lids and straws.

A video on TikTok this week featured what appeared to be a group of employees screaming in frustration over a list of ingredients the shop had run out of — including sweet cream, white mocha, mango dragon fruit and "every food item." The caption also said that they were low on cold brew and the "will to live."

Starbucks is hardly the only company struggling with supply issues. Earlier this spring, ketchup packets became hotter than GameStop stock. Automakers have slowed production because there are too few computer chips for their vehicles. And homeowners are waiting weeks, if not months, for major kitchen appliances.

In a statement, a spokeswoman for Starbucks said the company was experiencing "temporary supply shortages" of some of its products. She said the shortages varied by location, with some stores experiencing "outages of various items at the same time." She added that the company was working with its vendors to restock the items as soon as possible, and that the supply-chain issues had not affected prices.

Although most people are familiar with the problems in the global supply chain to some extent, some Starbucks customers are still shocked — even incensed — by their inability to get their coffee exactly how they want it. Others laugh it off.

"I was told they couldn't give me an extra shot of caramel because there was a national shortage," Nicole Brashear, a 24-year-old pharmacy student at the University of Louisiana, Monroe, said of ordering an iced caramel macchiato with extra caramel drizzle in late May. "I just sort of laughed and was like, 'Isn't caramel just burnt sugar?' "

The problem for Starbucks is that it was never just selling a simple cup of coffee. For many, the experience of visiting the chain is a self-indulgent treat.

Customers learn the language regarding sizes and special drinks and then share their customized, 12-ingredient drink orders on social media. Many look forward to seasonal specials, such as this summer's Unicorn Cake Pop and Strawberry Funnel Cake Frappuccino, which are available for a limited time.

"Starbucks did something remarkable: taking a really ordinary product, coffee, and remaking it as an identifier of class, of culture, of discernment and of knowledge," Simon said. "Starbucks is a way to communicate something about yourself to other people. While it has become more complicated over time, that drink still says, 'I deserve a break in my life. I can afford to waste money on coffee.' "

There were hints at supply issues. In a late April call with Wall Street analysts, the chief executive of Starbucks, Kevin Johnson, voiced some concerns about companies that were part of its supply chain struggling to hire the staff they needed.

"I do anticipate we'll do a little more to invest and help our supply-chain partners, whether it's staff that they need in manufacturing or staffing that they need for distribution and transportation," Johnson said.

By late May, customers and baristas were reporting shortages of key ingredients in stores all over the country.

Fred Rogers knew something was wrong right before Memorial Day weekend when he opened his Starbucks app and an alert flashed that the company was experiencing shortages of certain items.