Starbucks again tries boosting food options

Analysts: Chain has yet to find much success hawking meal items.

Starbucks has tried it all: First came cake pops, then truffle mac and cheese, and earlier this year, avocado toast.

Now the coffee giant is banking on another food fad to drum up lunch and dinner business: the sushi burrito.

The chicken maki roll — which the company says is “a classic California burrito with a twist” — comes with cooked chicken, pickled cabbage and avocado, and is rolled in sushi rice and wrapped with seaweed. It is currently part of the Mercato lunch menu at a handful of stores in Chicago and Seattle, where Starbucks is based.

But Starbucks first has to overcome a substantial hurdle: Convincing customers its food is worth eating.

Despite repeated efforts, analysts say Starbucks has yet to find much success hawking meals alongside its coffee. The challenges are logistical — Starbucks stores don’t have kitchens, for example — as well as behavioral.

Over the past four decades, Starbucks has trained its customers to run in, grab coffee and run out. Getting them to think beyond beverages, or linger for a meal, has proven more difficult, particularly as modern customers demand locally sourced, freshly made food.

“It’s been decades, but Starbucks is still trying to figure out food,” said Stephen Dutton, an analyst for market research firm Euromonitor International. “The short answer is, Starbucks food is never going to be better than the hot, made-to-order meals you’re going to get at a place like McDonald’s or Dunkin Donuts.”

The company’s new Mercato menu includes grilled cheese sandwiches with burrata, and chicken-and-quinoa soup.

“It’s all about providing higher-quality, fresh food at lunch,” Scott Maw, the company’s chief financial officer, told CNBC in June.

But analysts say the offerings raise a number of questions: Sell-