Oleato beverages — cold-pressed olive oil-infused coffee — will be available at Starbucks Reserve Roasteries on March 23, and in 75 Seattle and 475 Los Angeles area stores on March 27.
The beverages will also launch at the original Starbucks store on March 23.
The drink was initially launched in Italy in late February.
“Oleato represents the next revolution in coffee that brings together an alchemy of nature’s finest ingredients — Starbucks arabica coffee beans and Partanna cold pressed extra virgin olive oil,” Schultz said in a statement at the time. “Today I feel just as inspired as I did 40 years ago, Oleato has opened our eyes to fresh new possibilities and a transformational way to enjoy our daily coffee.”
Panera Bread announced a partnership with Amazon on Wednesday to bring a contactless palm reader payment option to in-store guests, courtesy of Amazon One. Panera says it is the first national restaurant chain to debut this technology, which allows users to link their credit card payment with their unique hand signature, and simply wave their hand to pay for their Panera sandwich or salad.
The technology will be initially tested at two St. Louis Panera locations, with plans to expand to 10-20 more, including stores in the Seattle market, over the next several months.
“When you walk into a café and come up to the cash register, if you’ve registered for Amazon One and linked it to your MyPanera account, you hover your palm over the Amazon One device and automatically, the associate knows who you are, if you have rewards available on your account, what your favorites are, and what your last order was,” Hanson said. “They can really learn to help you.”
Essentially, the purpose of the Amazon One device is both to remove the physical friction of paying for your food at a cash register and to introduce more customized and personalized touchpoints for the customer. Amazon says that since the feature is opt-in (you must physically hover your hand for it to register your presence), it’s more secure and safe than biometric data, especially since you cannot tell someone’s identity by looking at their palm.