Starbucks revamps bakery food ingredients

Restaurant operators like Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc and Panera Bread Co have emphasized natural ingredients and carved out successful niches in the competitive restaurant market -- despite premium prices.

"To the extent that you can have better quality ingredients, if it favorably impacts the taste profile, that clearly helps," Zackfia said.

Oatmeal is the company's top-selling food item, but analysts said it is difficult to parse out the impact of recent Starbucks' food initiatives because the economic downturn has damped afternoon beverage sales.

In 2007, Starbucks removed artificial trans fat from its food, changed its default milk used in beverages like lattes to 2 percent from whole milk and limited to 500 the number of calories in its food items. It also uses hormone-free milk.

Reworked baked goods that will debut at month-end include Banana Walnut Bread, which is made from 11 ingredients -- a number closer to home-made, a reduced fat Very Berry Coffee Cake that is 20 percent fruit, and an organic blueberry bar that was previously available only in the Pacific Northwest and a handful of other markets.

More indulgent treats include reformulated oatmeal cookies as well as double chocolate cookies and brownies.

A new Strawberry Banana Vivanno will be added to the menu, which will also include low-calorie salads and breakfast sandwiches made with egg whites.

Shares in Starbucks ended down 10 cents at $14.82.

(Reporting by Lisa Baertlein; Editing by Edwin Chan and Steve Orlofsky)