Starbucks will no longer sell an Italian baked goods brand in most of its high-end cafes, ditching the popular brand introduced by the company’s former CEO Howard Schultz.

The Seattle-based coffee chain will remove the Princi line of pastries and other baked goods from the menus of its eight Roastery and Reserve locations in the U.S. and China, according to an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

No timeline was given for the exit, which was decided by the company before Brian Niccol took over as CEO earlier this month, Bloomberg reported.

The Roastery and Reserve stores will continue to sell sandwiches, croissants and other non-Princi branded food assortments.

Princi is an Italian bakery and cafe brand known for its artisan breads, pastries and other baked goods. With Starbucks as an investor, Princi opened standalone locations in New York, Seattle and Chicago.

In 2016, Starbucks, then run by Schultz, partnered with Princi to introduce its baked goods at the chain’s Reserve Roasteries in New York, Seattle, Tokyo and Chicago.

Two years later, the company opened its first standalone Princi bakery at Seattle Reserve Roastery.

Princi-branded items are available for sale at 11 Starbucks Reserve locations in Tokyo as well as the Roastery in Milan.

“We look forward to continuing to offer customers the same menu of hand-crafted, artisanal foods using high-quality ingredients prepared daily by our chefs at our Starbucks Reserve locations across the U.S. and look forward to continuing to work with Princi in ours “Roastery in Tokyo and reserve locations as well as our Milan roastery,” Starbucks said in a statement to Nation’s Restaurant News.

Brooklyn-born Schultz is credited with growing Starbucks from a once small chain with a handful of coffee shops in Seattle into a global giant with more than 38,000 stores in 86 countries.

The manager said the concept for Starbucks was inspired by his travels to Italy, where he observed coffee drinkers visiting espresso bars and was impressed by the country’s coffeehouse culture.

He envisioned more than 1,000 standalone Princi stores as well as more than 1,000 Reserve stores — the high-end stores that sell hard-to-find coffees, cocktails and dishes.

Schultz resigned as Starbucks CEO three times, most recently in March 2023, when he was replaced by Laxman Narasimhan.

But Narasimhan’s tenure was marred by falling sales, falling profits and weak performance of Starbucks stock – leading to the appointment of Niccol, whose resume includes successful stints in the C-suite at Taco Bell and Chipotle.