In what has become an area of growing popularity among fast food outlets and coffee shops, Starbucks will allow customers to pre-order a coffee from their smartphone and then head to the store for collection.

Heavyweight fast food chains such as KFC and McDonalds, as well as relative newcomers such as Chipotle, have already tried mobile ordering and now Starbucks is set to launch later this year.

The logic for the coffee chain is its growing focus on selling food. Starbucks said orders placed remotely from a phone can be handled more quickly, freeing up staff time for selling food.

Orders will be placed via the Starbucks app which is already widely used among its customers for loyalty points and making in-store payments. Users pay at the point-of-sale terminals by presenting a 2D barcode which Starbucks staff scan at the checkout.

Howard Schultz announced the new service during a conference call for the company’s Q1 results last week.