“We are pleased to be ahead of schedule with key foundational programs like Green Apron Service, and we are confident that 2026 will continue to improve as we see the effects of our Back to Starbucks strategy begin to scale.”

In context

“turning cash to shareholders via dividends. While we have not provided official guidance for the year, I'd like to offer some preliminary thoughts on our broader outlook and the shape of Q4. As Brian said, we continue to make the most of the existing innovation plans and believe we have a strong fall platform, including the return of our popular Pumpkin Spice Latte that overlays the transformative work taking place on the company, brand and customer experience. Taking into account that we have a lot in flight, combined with the uncertain consumer environment, we are conservative on how the current year-over-year trends will change in Q4 for the U.S. company-operated business. We know we lose the benefit of ticket and the transactions are improving. Just where they will net out is unclear. We are pleased to be ahead of schedule with key foundational programs like Green Apron Service, and we are confident that 2026 will continue to improve as we see the effects of our Back to Starbucks strategy begin to scale. Both the tariff environment and coffee prices continue to be dynamic. We continue to mitigate expected tariff exposure outside of green coffee and are pleased to see green coffee prices moderate. We have also increased our coffee coverage relative to last quarter as prices have declined. Due to our coffee buying and hedging practices, you should expect to see both moving average coffee costs and coffee tariff impacts lag the market with year-over-year coffee cost increases expected to peak in the first half of fiscal 2026. Our margins in the near term are impacted by critical investments in our stores, partners and customers. However, the early signs of progress we're seeing in partner engagement, transactions in our critical dayparts and customer feedback give us confidence that these in”