Popular Coffe chain Starbucks has announced plans to close 8,000 branches in the US in May to carry out “racial bias” training. This comes after the chain had to apologise over last week’s arrest of two black men who were waiting to meet someone in a Starbucks in Philadelphia.
Following the incident, protesters converged on the store and there were calls for a boycott of Starbucks which went viral on Twitter and other social media apps.
Starbucks’ chief executive Kevin Johnson said he had been “learning what we did wrong and the steps we need to take to fix it”.
Johnson had apologised on behalf of the company and announced that all Starbucks company-owned branches and corporate offices will be closed on the afternoon of Tuesday 29 May. The training will be an attempt to prevent discrimination in Starbucks stores in the future.
Nearly 175,000 staff will receive the training, as will all future recruits, and according to the BBC, the closure could cost an estimated $20m in lost sales.
Will you still boycott the coffee store after this?
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