Starbucks Fall Menu Demand Surpasses 2019, 2020

Last quarter, Starbucks posted an earnings beat driven by strong U.S. cold beverage sales.

Cold-brew beverages have been a major driver of same-store sales growth, comprising 3/4 of drink sales in 21Q3.

Now, the company is brewing new menu items...and LikeFolio data confirms Consumers like what they see.

Every year Starbucks releases fall menu items at the end of August. This includes the infamous Pumpkin Spice Latte, or "PSL" -- if you know, you know.

This year, Starbucks added a new twist on its fall menu: Apple Crisp Macchiato.

And our system picked up on this drop...immediately.

By 2 p.m. on the date of the fall menu drop, our internal spike detector triggered a "high volume" alert. And by 7 p.m., volume exceeded 5x our z-score threshold.

Events like this are rare. We track nearly 1,000 companies and behaviors. SBUX was the only 5x trigger that day.

Even more rare is the metric being triggered: Positive Sentiment.

Not only was volume high, the outlier was tied to happy consumers. Impressive.

Now, let's zoom out.

We expect a spike on these seasonal drops. How did volume in 2021 compare vs. prior years? It's much higher.

Consumer mentions for Starbucks Fall Menu items were +27% higher in 2021 vs. 2020, and +45% higher vs. 2019.

In addition, overall Consumer Happiness increased +8 points on the menu launch date (+8 points YoY AND +8 points vs. the previous daily average).

Consumer Happiness is the most predictive long-term indicator for Starbucks sales growth...and annual events are great goalposts to use.

So this tells us, Starbucks sales growth can be expected to continue in the U.S...

This refreshed demand is being driven by multiple consumer trends, including:

• Consumers returning to the office: +35% QoQ
• Rising demand for coffee: +20% QoQ
• Rising demand for caffeine: +14% QoQ

While we can't anticipate recovery in China (what dinged Starbucks on its last report), the company's largest base is energized.

A powerful edge for investors.