Starbucks controversially buys Clover manufacturing firm

30th March 2008

Seattle-based roaster/retail chain Starbucks in mid-March said that it was buying local manufacturing firm Coffee Equipment Co, the makers of the award-winning Clover coffee brewing system.

Starbucks is currently trialling the Clover system—which offers a customised brew, one cup at a time, for each coffee variety—in six of its outlets in Seattle and Boston.

Portland, Oregon-based Stumptown Coffee, an early champion of the system, said it had decided to stop using the Clover brewer in protest over the sale, a report in The New York Times said.