Over the past months, Starbucks has been doubling down on its ghost kitchen rollout inside of at least a dozen CloudKitchens facilities across the country. In January, HNGRY broke the news of the partnership that began in fall ‘22 at CloudKitchens’ Culver City Cuisine location in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Nestlé is expanding its Starbucks licensing to non-traditional real estate operators like Gopuff, who recently unveiled a pilot at two Philadelphia microfulfillment centers. In 2018, Nestlé paid the coffee giant just over $7bn for the global rights to market its products to licensees for out-of-home consumption and distribute its CPG products. Last quarter, such licensees accounted for 49% of Starbucks’ total stores and 13% of its net revenues, ~$1.1bn. Meanwhile, it has been testing new formats with such licensees, like pickup-only stores at airports and automation through its new Siren System to drive operational efficiencies to both licensed and corporate-owned stores.