Starbucks Worker Instructed by Management to Use Decaf Instead

STARBUCKS WORKER SAYS MANAGER TOLD THEM TO USE DECAF AFTER RUNNING OUT OF REGULAR COFFEE, ESPRESSO

In a popular thread on the Starbucks Reddit, an employee who specifically works at a “We proudly serve Starbucks location”—which is not an actual Starbucks but instead a place that is authorized to sell Starbucks coffee—explained his dilemma.

“I literally don’t know if this is ethical or allowed so I wanted to ask here,” poster u/LundyHF said. In the post, the worker said that their location ran out of Starbucks brand espresso and all of their other backup blends but still had decaf left.

Instead of letting customers know so they could decide for themselves if they wanted Starbucks decaf or coffee from another brand, the locations’ management had another idea.

“Management now wants us to use decaf in all the hoppers, which we instantly saw as a red flag,” the person said.

“We were also told now to not tell anyone customers that we are serving them decaf without them knowing. Which obviously feels borderline unethical,” they added.