Starbucks: 3,000 new stores in Americas by 2017 (or two a day)

Get ready for two new Starbucks stores a day for the next four years – the Seattle coffee giant isn’t joking around about its ambitious growth plans.

By 2017, the chain plans to open more than 3,000 net new locations in its Americas region, half of them in the U.S. Thousands more will be freshly renovated, executives said at the company’s biennial investor conference Wednesday.

The already-massive company intends to have more than 20,000 retail stores on six continents by 2014.

By then, China will be Starbucks’ second-largest market, with 1,000 stores. The cafe chain plans to have 1,500 stores in 70 Chinese cities by the end of 2015.

It’s almost as if the headline on satirical “news” site the Onion – “New Starbucks Opens in Rest Room of Existing Starbucks” – isn’t quite an outrageous idea anymore.

Starbucks said it is also on track to double its so-called global channel development, putting its branded packaged goods at enough grocery stores and vendors to rival the size and profitability of its cafe locations.

The chain has been making a major push past coffee this year.

In November, Starbucks announced plans to buy mall-based tea company Teavana, which will supplement its existing Tazo brand, as it attempts to dominate the $40-billion tea market.

The company said Wednesday that it will start offering Teavana drinks at Teavana locations before also selling the beverages in Starbucks stores.

In June, Starbucks also picked up Bay Area artisan bakery brand La Boulange, which executives now say will provide goods to more than 2,500 U.S. Starbucks stores by the end of next year. And by then, Evolution Fresh, a San Bernardino juice brand that Starbucks picked up a year ago, will be stocked in more than 5,000 domestic Starbucks stores.

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