London, Sept 2 - Starbucks , the world's biggest coffee chain, is serving more Britons despite a recession which has seen consumers cut back on discretionary spending, the head of its UK and Irish business told Reuters.
"I think where we are now is that we're certainly serving more visitors than we were last year on a like-for-like basis," Darcy Willson-Rymer said in an interview.
Starbucks founder and chairman Howard Schultz drew a furious response from British business minister Peter Mandelson in February when he said the UK economy was in a spiral and the global group's biggest area of concern.
Willson-Rymer said the situation had improved since then.
"There's a couple of areas that have suffered more than others, for example the City of London or airports in particular ... but overall the business is performing well, given the circumstances."
He declined to say whether the UK and Ireland had beaten or lagged the 2 percent drop in like-for-like sales at Starbucks' international shops in its fiscal third quarter.
Starbucks, which serves around two million Britons a week, started using Fairtrade coffee in all espresso-based drinks at its 700-plus UK and Irish outlets on Wednesday, in line with an announcement made earlier this year.
The move is a big boost for the Fairtrade organisation, which aims to improve incomes and conditions for farmers in developing countries, and comes after confectioner Cadbury agreed a deal to launch a Fairtrade version of its signature Dairy Milk bar earlier this year.
"Today more than ever customers want to know that companies which they do business with behave in an ethical and responsible way," Willson-Rymer said.
"Customers trust the Fairtrade mark and the Fairtrade system. So it's a very easy way to understand it, to have assurance that actually what we say is true."
FAIRTRADE
UK sales of Fairtrade goods rose 43 percent to 700 million pounds ($1.1 billion) in 2008 and Harriet Lamb, chief executive of the Fairtrade Foundation, said growth had remained strong despite predictions shoppers would switch to cheaper options.
"If anything perhaps in a time of recession, you go back to your core values, things you really care about. At the end of the day people really care about people," she told Reuters.
"Obviously, we're only now in September, but we would hope that we're still on track to deliver growth of around 40 percent again this year," she said in an interview.
Starbucks estimated its move would increase the amount of Fairtrade-certified coffee sold in the UK and Ireland by 18 percent and would generate at least an extra 350,000 pounds for small-scale farmers in the coming year.
Willson-Rymer said Starbucks was not raising prices to offset the higher premium paid to farmers, and declined to comment whether this would hit profit margins.
"You've always got things moving up, things moving down and it's just part of that. I expect the business to continue to make progress, to continue to grow and continue to be profitable," he said.
He declined to say whether Starbucks planned to switch to using exclusively Fairtrade coffee in any of its other markets.