$1 Goes Farther at Starbucks - North Carolina NPR News

$1 Goes Farther at Starbucks

January 3, 2013 |

Starting today, Starbucks begins selling re-usable plastic cups for a buck. They're white with the company's logo. The company is rolling them out nationwide and in Canada. The cups will be cleaned with boiling water each time customers bring them in. Already it gives customers a dime discount each time they bring in reusable cups for refills. In 2008, Starbucks said it wanted to serve 25 percent of all drinks in reusable cups by 2015. That goal has since been reduced to 5 percent.

The company is also expanding. Next month, it will open its first Vietnam cafe in Ho Chi Minh City. The Seattle-based chain will entering a country of coffee lovers that already has an established market. At least two popular homegrown chains have dozens of locations across the country.

According to Starbucks executives, it operates more than 3,300 stores across 11 countries in China and the Asia-Pacific region. Vietnam is the world's second-largest coffee producer behind Brazil and already provides high-quality beans for Starbucks stores in other countries.