Starbuck is making headlines again, but this time it's for what is brewing up in their kitchen.
The chain, which has reportedly struggled to prepare fresh food that its customers find appealing, has turned to chef Pascal Rigo for some help.
"I almost didn't take the call," Rigo told CBS News. "It was Howard Schultz from Starbucks."
The baker, who was born in France and started the now 22-store La Boulange Bakery chain in San Francisco in 1999, was eventually talked into the position when the Starbucks chief executive officer made him an offer he could not refuse. Schultz offered to buy his company for $100 million in order to solve its food problem.
"Today, only a third of the people who come into our stores buy our food," said Cliff Burrows, president of Starbucks Americas. "They buy coffee and they go elsewhere for their food."
Burrows said beside breakfast sandwiches, the attempt to sale out meals fell flat.
"We have, for a long time, known that we wanted to upgrade our food, and here we met this guy with tremendous energy, real passion, and a dream," Burrows said, according to CBS.
Burrows said the pressure is on for profits to rise.
According to CBS, beginning the end of next year. La Boulange food will be available in all of the nearly 8,000 Starbucks across America. Rigo will not make all his pastry creations in San Francisco, but said he will continue to use and expand the network of bakeries that Starbucks has already worked with.
Rigo will train and supervise the company personally, and encourage them to buy their ingredients locally and produce regional variations.
"So we replicate this idea with bakers that are our partners all around the country."
Although the company has tried this tactic before and did not succeeded, Rigo said this time it is different.
"But they didn't have a baker, and now they do," he said.
