Like any fast-growing global corporation, Starbucks Coffee Co hopes to spend this year expanding aggressively into international markets while building record revenues.
But unlike most major corporations, it also is working feverishly to maintain its image of a homegrown company devoted to doing good works.
The question, Chairman Howard Schultz said at the company's annual shareholders meeting Tuesday, is "Can we get big and stay small?"
The two-hour gathering, in a packed house at Seattle's Ben-aroya Hall, opened and closed with the traditional trappings of a shareholders meeting -- financial outlooks and shareholder votes on whom to elect to the board and hire as an independent auditor.
But the Seattle coffee retailer spent most of the presentation listing its good works. One video montage showed the company's employees cleaning up parks and serving coffee at AIDS fund-raisers. Another touted its efforts to offer medical care in the areas where it grows coffee, and another was simply devoted to employees talking about how much they like working at Starbucks.
That wasn't all. Ethnic music played and a gospel choir sang I Believe I Can Fly. Employees waved flags from around the world -- including the American flag, which got a standing ovation.
A Sept. 11 survivor who found refuge in a Starbucks store was spotlighted in the audience, after his reunion with the man who pulled him inside to safety. A New York City-based Starbucks manager shared an embrace with Starbucks President Orin Smith, after receiving an award for his efforts to serve coffee to rescue workers and victims after the attacks on the World Trade Center.
It would be easy to forget that this is a company that makes and serves coffee. That's no mistake.
"There's probably only so much we can say about the coffee," Smith said in an interview after the meeting.
As the company continues to expand rapidly -- another 1,200 stores will open this year, including many internationally -- Smith said it's worked harder than ever to maintain its image.
But for all Starbucks' efforts to brag about its good works, some people aren't satisfied.
For the second year, about 50 organic foods proponents gathered outside the meeting to protest the company's use of genetically modified foods and milk containing artificially produced growth hormones.
Smith said last year Starbucks would aim to get rid of milk containing artificial growth hormones. This year, Smith said that proved to be too complicated and costly, and the company has decided only to offer the option of organic milk -- for an added price.
"Starbucks has actually been making a few good steps," said Lisa Ramirez, a protester with Friends of the Earth.
But she said the groups would continue protesting. "They can do a lot better," she said.
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