Live-Blogging the Starbucks Annual Meeting: Loyalty & Pike Place Roast

Schultz is now moving fast & furiously through his five new initiatives.

Initiative #4 will be a Starbucks loyalty card - sign up for it and get "free customization." That means every time you buy an espresso drink, your extras (soy, shots, etc) will be free.

Starbucks already announced last month free WiFi for registered cardholders. Today Schultz announced that your loyalty card (you can register online at starbucks.com) also gets you free coffee refills, and an espresso beverage of your choice when you buy a pound of whole bean coffee.

Starbucks' Initiative #5 is to "reinvent the art-form of blending coffee" with a new super-premium coffee blend called Pike Place Roast.

Schultz says it's the highest quality blended coffee they've ever created, and no other coffee company on the planet offers a coffee of this quality. The whole bean coffee will be shipped freshly roasted to every Starbucks.

Schultz describes the blend as "smooth but bold" - Pike Place Roast is going to be introduced in mid-April, and marketed with Starbucks original 1971 logo.

by Liz Gunnison