In bringing its brand of café society to the world, giant is wary of making mistakes eroding goodwillJim Donald is a three-cups-a-day man. Would that be decaf? "No. Full-speed. Caffeinated." The chief executive of Starbucks probably needs it. He says that he spends 40 per cent of his time travelling and is on the return leg of a whirlwind trip to visit coffee growers and officials in Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Ethiopia. The Starbucks corporate jet is stopping off in the UK and Germany before heading home to corporate HQ in Seattle. Mr Donald, a slim, sprightly Floridian in a pressed, cream shirt, says that the American chain operates 12,800 stores globally, including 530 in the UK, and serves 40 million people every week. With revenues of $6.4 billion (£3.3 billion) last year and 125,000 employees, Starbucks is already a caffeine-fuelled global juggernaut. Yet Mr Donald's plans don't end there. He wants to open another 40,000 Starbucks, half of them outside the United States. "We open six new stores every day," he smiles, sitting in a suspiciously pristine Central London branch of the ubiquitous coffee group. "We opened our first in Brazil last week. Cairo opens next week." So does Mr Donald plan to make Starbucks the new, well, McDonald's? "No," he says, swiftly. "We don't consider ourselves fast food. Starbucks is a 'third place', a respite. We don't want to take over the world. We do want to create a worldwide experience." It is an experience that has worked well for him. Mr Donald, a former chief executive of America's Pathmark supermarket chain who joined Starbucks in 2002, was paid $2.7 million last year. What about the company's influence beyond the froth and the cheerful green façade? After all, masterminding such a brisk global expansion is not just about opening new stores. Every year, Starbucks buys more and more coffee from producers in 27 Third World countries - 312 million pounds of the stuff in 2005. It is this nexus - where Starbucks's growing financial muscle as a buyer of key exports in some of the world's poorest countries connects with increasing demands from its customers to buy more ethical products - that has presented Mr Donald with his latest challenge. Mr Donald, who is 51 and married with two children, makes much of his commitment to ethical trade but Oxfam has accused him of trampling on the rights of growers in Ethiopia. "Ethiopia's farmers produce some of the finest and most sought-after coffees in the world, including coffees that have been sold under Starbucks' Black Apron Exclusives line for up to $26 a pound, but they receive only 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the retail price," Abera Tola, of Oxfam America, says. Oxfam says that Starbucks has blocked the Ethiopian Government's efforts to take greater control of coffee exports by applying for US trademarks for three regional coffee brands, a move that could boost the growers' annual income by £47 million. Mr Donald, who has just been to Addis Ababa to discuss the issue with Meles Zenawi, the Ethiopian Prime Minister, denies this. He points out that Starbucks is buying 400 per cent more Ethiopian coffee than four years ago and pays a 28 per cent premium above regular market prices as an extra incentive to growers. He claims that Starbucks has made no effort to block Ethiopia's trademark application and says that the dispute is between Ethiopia and US regulators because American law prohibits the use of regional trademarks in this way. "It's not for me to decide. It's a problem with US laws. We're not a government agency. We're a coffee company." It's a nifty get-out clause, but one that Oxfam rejects. It claims that Starbucks's opposition has been made indirectly through America's National Coffee Association, a powerful industry lobby group. Again, Mr Donald denies this. "That's their business. We just took the call," he says, adding that he told Mr Zenawi the company prefers "certification" over trademarking. So what's the difference? Mr Donald shifts slightly in his Starbucks-regulation armchair. "I can't talk about the details because I don't understand them," he says. "I'm not a trademark lawyer." An ethical trade-offIt's quite an admission for the chief executive of one of the world's most successful trademarked brands, especially since it's a distinction that customers seem to care about. According to Oxfam, 85,000 people have written to or faxed the company to protest about its stance. How does that make him feel? "I haven't seen the 85,000 faxes, but at the end of the day I was on the farm talking to the producers and I know the premium prices we pay. I know that we have Ethiopian coffee in 12,800 stores. I know that we are doing what is right and in the best interests of coffee farmers and of the country by making sure that we showcase African coffee names across the world." It's a robust enough response and on one level it's hard not to sympathise. Like McDonald's, Starbucks is a highly visible target for non-governmental organisations and anti-globalisation campaigners. With his easy charm and his gingerbread latte, Mr Donald does not come across as a heartless plutocrat. He does seem to care about the company's footprint, if for no other reason than it's not good business to do otherwise. Indeed, he sounds sincere as he reels off examples of Starbucks-sponsored education programmes, environmental initiatives and development loans to destitute Kenyan coffee growers. "We have to earn the right to be a big company," he insists. "We have to give back to the communities in which we operate, whether they are farms or whether they are neighbourhoods or suppliers that we buy from. Our customers expect it and they should expect it." Nevertheless, talking to him, you sense a company on the back foot, scrambling to head off a public relations crisis. Already, Oxfam has taken out full-page ads in The New York Times and two Seattle-based newspapers on the issue. This weekend, Black Gold, a critical film about the global coffee trade, is set to open in American cinemas, with Starbucks firmly in its sights. It will take much more than this to topple the Starbucks steamroller, but the PR machine goes only so far. The spin that Mr Donald puts on his talks in Ethiopia jars with Addis Ababa's. He says the talks were "very productive". Oxfam says that they broke down.