Starbucks to Open Regional Farmer Support Center in Rwanda

Starbucks (Nasdaq: SBUX) chairman Howard Schultz announced today
that the company will open a regional Starbucks Farmer Support Center
in Rwanda. The facility will provide an opportunity for Starbucks to
collaborate with farmers in Rwanda and in the East Africa region, and
demonstrates the company´s continued support for their efforts to
expand the availability of their high quality, specialty coffee
worldwide.

"We are very excited to have a regional Starbucks Farmer Support
Center here in Rwanda. We look forward to working with Starbucks to
offer additional support to the coffee farming community here and in
the neighboring countries," said Paul Kagame, President of the
Republic of Rwanda. "This center will offer many new opportunities to
enhance our methods and produce even greater volumes of our high
quality specialty coffees."

The Rwandan center, like the one announced earlier this week to be
located in Ethiopia, will have an agronomist (agricultural scientist)
on staff and will be similar to the Starbucks Farmer Support Center
established in 2004 in Costa Rica. The staff will work with East
African coffee communities to improve coffee quality and growing
practices. They will also work to increase the number of farmers
participating in Coffee and Farmer Equity (C.A.F.E.) Practices,
Starbucks sustainable coffee buying guidelines. Since the
establishment of the company´s Latin American Farmer Support Center,
Starbucks has seen improvements in quality evaluation scores, a 20
percent increase in yields per hectare, an 80 percent reduction in the
use of pesticides and a 5 percent increase in the suppliers´ C.A.F.E.
Practices scores for participating growers in that region.

Schultz is joined in Rwanda by Cliff Burrows, president Starbucks
EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa); Dub Hay, Starbucks senior vice
president of Coffee and Global Procurement; and Sandra Taylor,
Starbucks senior vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility.
During his visit in Rwanda, Schultz will meet with President Kagame as
well as visit a local coffee farm.

"We are honored to have the opportunity to participate in the
further development of coffee farming practices in Rwanda and East
Africa in general. The fine coffees grown here are cherished by people
around the world, and Starbucks is extremely pleased both to support
the farming community and to share these delightful coffees with
people across the globe through our nearly 15,000 stores," said
Schultz.

Starbucks is strengthening and deepening its engagement with East
Africa, with a special focus on new technical capacity building
programs such as the Farmer Support Center to help farmers produce the
high quality coffee purchased by specialty coffee buyers like
Starbucks. Today´s announcement builds on the investments Starbucks
has made in East Africa over the past five years. This includes:

-- A commitment to double the amount of East African coffee
purchased in 2006 by 2009.

-- More than $4 million to help East African coffee farmers
improve their communities through funding projects such as
schools and bridges.

-- Programs with non-profit organizations such as CARE and
WaterAid to address rural development challenges in the
region.

-- An additional $1 million into a program to provide access
to low interest loans to East African coffee farmers
through the non-profit lender Root Capital, for a total of
$10 million in loans to coffee farmers worldwide.

About Starbucks

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