Caffeine and Contracts

I've spent the better part of the past week going over the numbers for this year's edition of our annual Top 200 Federal Contractors issue. I don't want to give anything away before the issue comes out Aug. 15, but to put the numbers in perspective, think about this: If all of the $4.5 billion worth of coffee that Starbucks sold in the United States in the past year was purchased by federal agencies, that would barely be enough to put the company in the Top 10 contractors. And even if the folks at Starbucks managed to accomplish this feat, they’d have to sell an additional $20 billion worth of lattes and frappuccinos to approach the amount of money that Lockheed Martin takes in from Uncle Sam.