Starbucks' focus shifts to tea, juice and expanding operations
Starbucks Corp. announced plans to significantly expand its operations at home and abroad. The coffee chain, which operates over 18,000 shops around the world, expects to open 3,000 new stores in the Americas by 2017, with over half of the new outlets popping up in the US. Starbucks also looks to increasingly rely on tea and juice sectors to drive growth thanks to Evolution Fresh and Teavana brands acquired in recent months. The goal at Teavana will be to add tea bars featuring tea-based beverages to the existing offer of dry leaves. Starbucks may also start selling Teavana's teas in its own outlets. The coffee retailer also expects China to overtake Canada as its second biggest market in 2014 and plans to have nearly 4,000 cafes in Asia by the end of 2013.