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The Smell of Home

You won’t find a Starbucks coffee bar at the Olympics in Russia: McDonald’s “McCafé” is the official coffee sponsor, and the nearest Starbucks is 350 miles away. Unless, that is, you have the credentials to get inside the NBC broadcast section of the press compound: the network has brought in Starbucks-trained baristas from other Russian cities, providing them with Starbucks equipment and supplies to provide coffee drinks 24 hours a day to the network’s 2,500 staffers — for free. “It’s what Napoleon said: An army travels on its stomach,” commented NBC’s Senior Vice President of Olympic Operations, John Fritsche. The “secret” coffee bar is within Olympic rules because it’s not open to the public, and is “a huge morale booster” for his employees, Fritsche says. (RC/Wall Street Journal) ...McDonald’s as the Olympics’ official coffee supplier is almost as bad as McDonald’s being the official hamburger supplier.
Original Publication Date: 16 February 2014
This story is in True’s book collections, in Volume 20.

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