May 20, 2022

"Former CEO Kevin Johnson acknowledged that dairy products are Starbucks’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions and that switching to plant milk is 'a big part of the solution.'"

"Yet despite knowing that cow’s milk is responsible for three times the emissions of plant milks, the corporation still slaps an undue fee of up to 80 cents on eco-friendly choices. If you’re thinking the company is merely passing on its additional cost to the consumer, think again. According to PETA’s research, it costs Starbucks a few pennies extra to use vegan milk in a drink — but it charges you 10 times the cost or more. To me, the reasoning is obvious. About 40 percent of U.S. adults now purchase nondairy milk (mostly almond), oat milk sales shot up 95 percent in the 52-week period ending in early September, and around half of Gen Zers say they’re dropping dairy. Making conscientious people pay more is profitable. But for any company with the reach and resources of Starbucks to profiteer in the face of a global calamity … well, it brings to mind the greedy Gordon Gekko....  ...Starbucks says it wants 'to inspire and nurture the human spirit.'... End the vegan upcharge."

From "I glued my hand to a Starbucks counter. Here’s why" by James Cromwell (WaPo). 

Here's my May 11th post about the protest. As I said there, I think Starbucks should redo the prices so that drinks with cow's milk and vegetarian milk substitutes are the same price. I would not have known about this issue if it had not been for Cromwell's glued-hand protest, but I do still disapprove of that kind of behavior. There are worse protests, but I think Cromwell, et al., can do better. I note that he didn't explain the connection between glue — or hands — and his cause, so there's nothing especially significant about glued hands.

100 comments:

rhhardin said...

They're just making it a premium product by charging more. You get that little virtue kick.

wendybar said...

So then the company will have to raise the prices for everybody else?? Plant based "milk" is more expensive. If you want it...PAY FOR IT.

Koot Katmandu said...

According to PETA research. Yikes like I would believe anything they say.

MadisonMan said...

If you drink your coffee black, this is not a problem. Of course, that would mean you'd have to put up with Starbucks' heinous burnt coffee bean flavor.
I will always, always find a local establishment. Why fill the coffers of corporate coffee?

n.n said...

Supply and demand determine price outside of single/central/monopolistic environments.

Smilin' Jack said...

“I would not have known about this issue if it had not been for Cromwell's glued-hand protest, but I do still disapprove of that kind of behavior.”

If I ran that store his hand would still be on the counter. (Though I would provide him a knife so the rest of him could leave—I’m not a monster.) Getting between me and my cow juice is almost as dangerous as getting between me and my beer.

n.n said...

Methane emissions are a first-order forcing of [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] climate change. Carbon dioxide has a net zero effect globally with minority anthropogenic sources.

tim maguire said...

Cromwell plays a hippie wacko on Succession (who's an aloof asshole to his grandson); apparently he's his own source material. It's inarguable that dairy alternatives are much more expensive than dairy. PETA might be right that the per-serving difference is only a few cents but I'm not willing to take their word for it. And other enviro-wackos have a problem with almond milk, so...

The specialty people, with their floating demands, deserve their specialty premium. They're paying not just for the increased costs of their petty activism, but also for the unreliability of their demands.

PM said...

But a glued hand AND a Babe jig would be significant.

Dave Begley said...

No, Ann. The Left can't do better. They are insane about CAGW. I had never heard of that whackjob actor who glued his hand to a Starbucks counter. CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world.

The carbon dioxide from cows is de minimis and that's especially true compared to all the carbon dioxide emitted from the hundreds of coal-fired power plants in China and India.

The scammy nature of CAGW is shown here with Starbucks switching to vegan "milk" and then charging 10x more.

Here's my prediction. The next big issue will be the Left pressuring Starbucks and other restaurants to buy carbon credits and then posting the info in the store. I've been bugging liberal restaurants here in Omaha to do this. Isn't the future of Planet Earth at stake?

WK said...

I’d suggest that the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions that Starbucks is responsible for comes from the SUVs and minivans sitting in the drive through lines. Make people park and walk in if you are concerned about the environment.

And it always seems like the products I enjoy are never price subsidized.

Frank said...

PETA is not a neutral source of information particularly regarding a corporation’s cost structure.

gilbar said...

two words: Delicious Whole Milk

traditionalguy said...

Ultra BS from the cult of fake science lying 100% about sacred cows .How a sane person falls for such obvious crap is unbelievable.

Frank said...

PETA is not a neutral source. Claiming to one a corporation’s cost structure should be taken with a pound of salt

Beasts of England said...

Don’t worry, when almond ‘milk’ is the same price as dairy, the ecotards will try to eliminate it because of how much water is consumed by almond orchards.

Dr Weevil said...

Since he was protesting about milk, specifically the kind produced by mammals, not the pseudo-milk made from plants, he should have glued his nipples to the counter. That would have made a coherent point.

Wa St Blogger said...

Ah, but how much water does it take to make a cup of almond milk?

It takes 1.1 gallons of water to grown an almond, 4 almonds per cup, so a 16 ounce almond milk latte requires 8.8 gallons of water pro produce (not counting any water needed to produce the starches and fillers and the liquid itself. Now, with California short on water, can it actually produce enough almond milk to replace dairy?

Christopher B said...

Bah, if Starbuck's plain coffee didn't taste like goat piss squeezed through a dirty sock then they wouldn't need to sell the majority of it gooped up with additional flavorings, dairy, and sugar.

Mike Sylwester said...

How much carbon dioxide is used to plow the fields, to plant the seeds, to harvest the crop, to transport the crop to the factory, and to manufacture the fake plant-milk?

Let's start our analysis here:

When a tractor plows a field where soy will be planted, does the tractor emit any carbon-dioxide?

stlcdr said...

Just charge more for dairy products?

Regardless, climate change has nothing to do with starbucks: they are there to provide something that someone will buy.

Also: it's always about money with these climate activists. Always someone else should do something, and not them. Clearly, they aren't willing to make that sacrifice.

Lurker21 said...


I look forward to more op-eds like this.

Whenever somebody does something stupid, instead of ridiculing them and sneering about Darwin Awards, they should be given a column to explain why they did what they did.


JustSomeOldDude said...

The whole thing takes First World Problems to a whole new world.

Joe Smith said...

'As I said there, I think Starbucks should redo the prices so that drinks with cow's milk and vegetarian milk substitutes are the same price.'

Good thing you were a professor at a state-run institution and not working at a for-profit business...

Jonathan said...

As I said there, I think Starbucks should redo the prices so that drinks with cow's milk and vegetarian milk substitutes are the same price.

If Starbucks' CEO's duty per the Articles of Incorporation are to maximize the company's value to its shareholders, and if higher demand for fake milk enables him to charge more for it, thereby increasing profit, then he is legally bound to do so.

Paddy O said...

"About 40 percent of U.S. adults now purchase nondairy milk (mostly almond)"

My wife is from Oregon, I grew up in Southern California. We learned early on how these regions affected our view of recycling, trash, environment. She is very sensitive to recycling cans, using cloth towels and washing them, etc. In contrast, I am very sensitive to using water. We have a lot of land, but not a lot of water. Oregonians have all the water they could want.

Which is to say that the challenge with environmentalism in many cases is that while there are good motives, even the best intentions can have countering concerns.

Almond milk isn't making as much carbon dioxide, but I'd love the activists to consider how California is the #1 almond growing region in the world and also is in the midst of a massive 3 year drought, with almond groves using quite a lot of water.

Keeping a herd of cows may not use less water (I don't know) but cows can be where water is more plentiful, thus balancing out environmental stresses.

gilbar said...

profiteer in the face of a global calamity
what the???

First of All, SHIPPING, is their biggest source of CO2 emissions.
If they don't know that; they're either Lying, or Dumb
Actually, their BIGGEST source of CO2 emissions are: Their customers Driving to their stores
Maybe, they should encourage people to STAY HOME?

Tom said...

The glued hand makes it hard to leave. Take it from someone who as a kid super accidents glued his hands together more than once.

Also, milk products are the only reason I go to Starbucks. Fake milk sucks.

TheOne Who Is Not Obeyed said...

It's highly doubtful that the carbon footprint of the domestically-produced dairy is greater than the carbon footprint of their stores or their coffee itself. If this bozo really cared about reducing carbon he would NOT GO TO STARBUCKS. It's a luxury item that has a huge carbon footprint.

Good actors are usually poor economists. Of course the newspapers eat this crap up, and many readers are convinced by the public antics of Progressive fanatics.

gilbar said...

from Starbucks: Growing Sustainability One Cup at a Time

Its global footprint contributes upwards of 1.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, 80% of which are attributable to critical operations of its retail stores and supply chain
Tackling the issue from both the store and farm level, its strategy is twofold: 1) reduce the environmental footprint from retail and supply chain operations, and 2) engage in climate-smart agricultural practices as part of their ethical coffee sourcing process.

So, IF i'm reading that correctly; only 20% of their CO2 comes from farming??
(Shipping, brewing, serving, cleaning, etc; make more CO2 than Growing? Who'd a thought?

i THINK they're saying, that of the 20% from farming.. Most comes from cows??

Bart Hall said...

As an agronomist, I categorically reject the premise that cattle -- dairy or beef -- are inherently harmful; in fact they are inherently good for the planet. That said, some production systems are more harmful than others, and not incidentally production systems which are environmentally harmful are also harmful to the animals trapped therein.

Cattle and other ruminants like bison, sheet, goats, water-buffalo and such are solar-powered grass combines; and grass is the great environmental healer, capturing massive amounts of solar energy, covering and protecting the soil, building and healing the soil, all by turning sunlight and CO2 into organic matter, by which it stores carbon below ground in a fashion which greatly increases biodiversity and system resilience.

Ruminants convert grass into high-quality protein for humans and other high-order predators, and in many parts of the world the soils and climate are such that grasses are the only option. Remove the ruminants from those systems and the land will desertify with remarkable speed.

Anti-animal activists make the same mistake -- blaming an OBJECT for a problem -- as anti-gun activists; they're commonly the same people, and they routinely draw illogical and incorrect conclusions from fatally-flawed initial assumptions.

The real problem is that you cannot reason people out of positions they did not reason themselves into in the first place. Yet they are tremendously noisy in the promotion and defense of fundamentally incorrect positions.

Temujin said...

I like to go to James Cromwell to get much needed direction on the future of our planet.
Also, in light of this, I'm stocking up on candles and building a grist mill in my backyard.

Temujin said...

I like to go to James Cromwell to get much needed direction on the future of our planet.
Also, in light of this, I'm stocking up on candles and building a grist mill in my backyard.

D.D. Driver said...

Accusing Starbucks of price gouging is like accusing Ferrari of price gauging.

Geoff Matthews said...

Wait, you guys aren't making your own coffee?

SGT Ted said...

"Plant milk" isn't milk.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Former CEOs speak more than when they are CEOs. What’s up with that?

Iman said...

Starbucks should do whatever their biz plan has detailed.

And those what don’t like dat are free to buy their coffee elsewhere…

David said...

I thought there might be a cost difference, but .... Just looked online at our local supermarket (Dillons, the Kansas brand name for Kroger):

1/2 gallon Dillons Vitamin D Whole Milk. $2.59

1/2 gallon Silk Almond Milk $2.77

1/2 gallon Silk Extra Creamy Oat Milk $ 2.77

Maybe the nondairy milks at Starbucks have supernatural ingredients, much like their burnt coffee. :)

Farmer said...

"According to PETA’s research"

Yeah. Well.

Michael K said...

Phlogiston survives in the minds of people like this. The global warming scam is weakening monthly but there is too much money involved for it to die.

farmgirl said...

I may be skeptical and I’m surely boast- but, there must be proof through some mathematical equation (which I wouldn’t understand, anyway)to support the negative claim that plant based is better ecologically.

Please provide the positives/negatives b/c last time I checked- these plants took a shit ton of fertilizer/herbicides to get decent yields- plus h2O. Fuel to distribute.

All b/c cows belch.
I call bull.

Ps- I am no fan of factory anything. Nor am I an organic only proponent. Animals kept in miles of “lots” standing in their own liquid shit due to nutritional rations is cruel. There should be animal limits on acreage. I say that b/c the gov’t is already so far up in our… business that they should be sensible about it. Not just pandering to lobbyist panderers. I suppose Starbucks is only positioning b/c who knows how many farmers of anything will be around in the next 2 1/2yrs of this administration.

rant/off

effinayright said...

????

Climatistas generally worry themselves shitless over the methane output of cattle, not CO2.

So...where's the case? CO2 emissions from milk three times those of plant milk?

Three times WHAT?

https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/making-cattle-more-sustainable

"Cows and other ruminants account for just 4 percent of all greenhouse gases produced in the United States, he said, and beef cattle just 2 percent of direct emissions."

That's ALL greenhouse gases, which includes methane.

And, of course, dairy cows represent about 10% of all cattle .

https://petkeen.com/how-many-cows-in-us/

All told, Starbucks' savings are like spitting into the ocean.

Mark said...

Those soy, oat, almond and pee "milks," er, pea, "milks" have a completely different taste, texture and mix-ability than cow milk. Of course, there is always artificial "creamer."

Tofu King said...

The glued hands are the hook to get the media to pay attention. It worked.

Howard said...

I'm sure Cromwell will take your suggestions under advisement. People in the arena appreciate the feedback. Especially after they hit a home run and it's pointed out that there form was off-putting.

Jim Gust said...

Seems to me the environmental cost of the plant juice substitute has been grossly underestimated. How many almonds are required to make an ounce of almond milk? How much water is required to grow that many almonds?

The obsession with cow farts is stupid.

Scott Patton said...

I'll bet the various "Dairy Boards" are really pissed when white plant based liquids are referred to as milk.
I accuse PETA and their milk price research of emitting large amount of CO2 and Methane. During a quick search, there were words like "highly subsidized" referring to cow milk and artificially low prices. I'm not saying it's not subsidized, but in PA, the last time I paid any attention, we have a minimum(!) price on milk. I'm not sure how that works for comparison purposes. And what are the chances that almonds aren't subsidized?
Maybe if we had a society where damn near everything wasn't a racket, people wouldn't have to glue their hands to counters to influence a pretend market.
As far as glued hands go, I don't get it either. Cows aren't nearly as sticky as horses (and I imagine, much easier to milk).

Scott Patton said...

Isn't (California) water at the top of the ingredient list of almond milk?
Where cows live, water falls right out of the sky!

Scott Patton said...

sorry, I shoulda worked this into the last post. Larry David, surprisingly, knows how coffee should be served. It is an old clip. Nowadays he seems more like the type to glue his hand to the counter.

Bob Boyd said...

it costs Starbucks a few pennies extra to use vegan milk in a drink

Unless there's something about the whole vegan milk business I'm misunderstanding, it seems to me, if vegans really cared this issue, they would volunteer to milk one another for Starbucks. The company would be able to save on labor costs and could pass the savings on to consumers.

On a related note, a friend of mine once tried to start up a group called People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegans, but she couldn't find a soul who was in favor of the concept.

pacwest said...

profiteer in the face of a global calamity

Since I've never had a Starbucks I don't really have a cow in this fight, but global calamity? OK then.

Pillage Idiot said...

Economics 101: You cannot get someone to pay a price premium when they are shopping by price.

Economics 201: You CAN get someone to pay a price premium when they are ideologically opposed to the substitution products.

Howard said...

Almond milk is the worst for environmental degradation.

wendybar said...

Well said farmgirl at 12:31pm!!

Aggie said...

Biology is Bad, Eating is Worse, and we should all feel guilty about not starving ourselves to death.

maximusK said...

Thank you for providing me with yet another reason to avoid Starbucks.

Dude1394 said...

Cromwell thinks that his fantasy is accepted fact, it is not. It's his accepted fact and his wish is not MY emergency.

tim maguire said...

Howard said...I'm sure Cromwell will take your suggestions under advisement

As usual, you have it backwards. It is we who don't care about Cromwell's suggestions. Who do you think needs to convince whom about what here?

gadfly said...

Coffee creamers derived from animal milk were displaced with non-dairy products mainly because milk is sweetened with natural lactose which is bad for 15% of adults suffering from lactose intolerance. Yeah, the weird vegans among us also contribute to less dairy creamer consumption but vegans fail to recognize that humans are omnivores.

But none of this makes any sense as far as pricing food is concerned. There is no standard mark-up in the retail food industry - prices are "whatever the market will bear" after direct costs and overheads are covered. Commodity fluctuations are, of course, constantly monitored to assure target profit adequacy. If consumers dislike prices, they can shuffle off to another supplier.

As for the cost of carbon dioxide - there is none unless there is a state calculating a tax based on some really dumb formula. God already stepped in and made carbon dioxide essential to life so there is no issue with generating CO2 either.

James Cromwell, an honorary director of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has lost it. How can careful caring of cows to include adequate and essential food and veterinary be unethical? Fresh cows are attached to painless milking machines once a day to collect mothers' milk for the good of us all.

n.n said...

According to PETA research. Yikes like I would believe anything they say.

People for the Euthanasia of Throwaway Animals

n.n said...

The obsession with cow farts is stupid.

Herbivore... vegan emissions, not including collection, processing, distribution, electric energy, electronic computation, etc.

chuck said...

There's nothing especially significant about glued hands.

Sure there is, I learned a lot about James Cromwell. Also had a good laugh.

Joe Smith said...

'People in the arena appreciate the feedback.'

Ha! He's a bored, millionaire, look-at-me liberal crybaby.

He is undoubtedly a good actor, and if I ever want advice on acting I'm sure he'd be a knowledgable source.

Everything else? He can kiss my ass. And that pretty much goes for all celebrities who don't live in the real world.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"According to PETA’s research,"

And you can pretty much stop right there, because only a fool trusts "PETA’s research"

cubanbob said...

We should go the South America way for cattle. Grass fed. We have plenty of marginal land that is more than adequate for grassland. And grass fed meat is supposedly healthier and has the advantage of being more cost resilient to the rancher.

As for Starbucks, it is beyond me anyone would drink that swill. However as noted above, their duty is to the shareholders and not to progs.

R C Belaire said...

A bit OT: Starbucks coffee is generally over-roasted for my taste. While Panera's coffee is not the greatest, ever since they've had their monthly "all-you-care-to-drink" coffee subscription program (and now expanded to other beverages), that's where I hang out.

What's emanating from your penumbra said...

The latest science I've seen shows that cows are carbon negative if managed properly. Virtually 100% of the carbon they release into the air was taken from the air. It doesn't increase carbon to take it out of the air and put it back into the air. And that's before you account for the carbon that they take out of the air and don't release back into the air, such as what they deposit on the ground and what gets deposited in the bellies of happy people around the world.

JK Brown said...

non-dairy "milks" have a shorter shelf life post opening and there is likely a lot of waste do to only sporadic calls for it. Starbucks buys milk by the longshelf life bulk packaging and uses it long before it can spoil.

Bruce Hayden said...

“If you drink your coffee black, this is not a problem. Of course, that would mean you'd have to put up with Starbucks' heinous burnt coffee bean flavor.
“I will always, always find a local establishment. Why fill the coffers of corporate coffee?”

Around here, it is McDonald’s coffee. Across the country they do a great job at not burning it or letting it get stale. And in the parts of the west that we frequent, it is $1, except in WA for some odd reason. Pop over the border to ID, and it is $1. And Reddi Whip (also known as “squirt” here) for the cream. Our pets (dog and cat) love it too - each getting their coveted dollop every morning. There’s an empty can on the truck, so I don’t forget to pick up a couple of cans when I go out. I can pass off the Walmart store brand as the original, because the cans (intentionally) have similar color schemes. The Kroger’s and Safeway store brands, in their white cans don’t pass muster. A couple months ago there was a shortage of these products in the grocery stores, and I found myself paying over $5 a can at Safeway for the name brand, because it wasn’t available at Fry’s (Kroger’s)(≈4.75) or Walmart (<$4).

Usually, when we travel, it is the squirt that is the problem - McDonald’s are fairly ubiquitous, but going there late can be a problem, with occasional burned/stale coffee. 7-11/Circle K, etc are next on our list, followed by hotel coffee. It’s been a couple years since we were stuck with Starbucks horrendous coffee. I think that it was in Las Vegas, in a hotel/casino there, which didn’t offer coffee, because Starbucks was paying them to have an exclusive franchise there. Very much like CNN at airports.

Browndog said...

Plants have feelings too. Some even enjoy classical music.

Oh, they also absorb carbon and replenish the atmosphere with clean, wholesome, life saving oxygen.

Plant killers are nazis.

lgv said...

Actually, if we quit subsidizing dairy, milk prices would go down significantly, half the dairy farmers would go out of business, and their land would be used for something better for the economy. PETA would be happy and sad at the same time as there really would be a large cost difference.

How about you bring your own non-dairy creamer? Oh, and the cost difference isn't just the price of the soy/almond milk. You material handling, storage, separation of equipment used, etc. Those who demand it should pay for it.

Bruce Hayden said...

As others have pointed out, but needs to be reemphasized - Climate Change is a made up, pretend, crisis. They gave up calling it Global Warming, when that theory was falsified. Turns out, even using their highly massaged metrics, the Earth isn’t getting warmer. So they now call it Climate Change, since that theory cannot be falsified - more hurricanes or fewer, hotter or colder, etc, all are taken to show Climate Change. But without the possibility of falsification, it isn’t science. It’s religion.

This is esp an inopportune time for this theory, with Vail ski resort staying open later than it ever has before. It has been down around freezing every night where we have our house in NW MT. And even here PHX, the real heat is running a month late. It’s now in the mid 90s, while temps usually break 100 a month earlier. But then, as I keep pointing out, greenhouse gasses are not statistically a driver of global temperature - esp as contrasted to such things as solar activity, earth’s wobble, etc. When all those factors are removed, what you have left is statistical noise, and that is what they have to work with. As I said, it’s not science - it is religion.

NMObjectivist said...

The Starbucks milk story is not a story if you think emissions aren't really a problem. Or is it really a PETA story about animals? Either way ...

Oh Yea said...

Blogger David said...
I thought there might be a cost difference, but .... Just looked online at our local supermarket (Dillons, the Kansas brand name for Kroger):

1/2 gallon Dillons Vitamin D Whole Milk. $2.59

1/2 gallon Silk Almond Milk $2.77

1/2 gallon Silk Extra Creamy Oat Milk $ 2.77

Maybe the nondairy milks at Starbucks have supernatural ingredients, much like their burnt coffee. :)

Starbucks buys wholesale not at your local supermarket. Often different price structures

Gator said...

This is the second time (and twice too much) Althouse has posted on the subject. She got slammed before, and likely will again.

If you want Vegan milk you can pay for it. And no the vegan milk that Starbucks uses doesn't cost pennies more. Its nearly double the price of their regular milk. My brother is a manager at the Starbucks in Huntington, WV (one of two within 50 miles of their location).

Stop peddling lies about the vegan milk they use.

Captain Curt said...

Cromwell says, "According to PETA’s research, it costs Starbucks a few pennies extra to use vegan milk in a drink — but it charges you 10 times the cost or more."

In a business like Starbucks, ingredients total less than 10% of the cost of the product to the consumer, behind things like rent, wages, utilities, etc.

So it is perfectly reasonable that there is a 10x markup on the incremental cost of plant milk vs cow milk. No penalizing of the virtuous needed.

When I was young, I saw the Marxist critique of beer companies that they spend more money on advertising than they did on ingredients. It wasn't until many years later that I saw the cost breakdown: ingredients 6% and advertising 7% of consumer cost.

WK said...

Jonathan said...
“If Starbucks' CEO's duty per the Articles of Incorporation are to maximize the company's value to its shareholders, and if higher demand for fake milk enables him to charge more for it, thereby increasing profit, then he is legally bound to do so.”

The Environmental, Social and Governance reports will provide cover for any impact to shareholder value. ESG is going to be the tool to indicate stock value and profitability are the wrong measures for a well run modern socially acceptable company.......

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

How do you think Musk is making money?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

gadfly said...

"vegans fail to recognize that humans are omnivores."

No - they just don't care.

Mark said...

If you drink your coffee black, this is not a problem.

Has no one brought up the Italian husband yet?

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Those annoying box cartons are going to manufacture themselves.

Tomcc said...

The point has already been made, but using "PETA's research" is no way to underpin the argument. Advocacy groups just might have some internal bias.

boatbuilder said...

I haven't read the comments yet, but has anybody suggested that the outraged people buy their coffee somewhere else?

Joe Smith said...

'If you drink your coffee black, this is not a problem.'

I like my coffee black and hot.

Just like my women...

boatbuilder said...

I haven't read the comments yet, but has anybody suggested that the outraged people buy their coffee somewhere else?

boatbuilder said...

I think that Nordstrom's should price their shoes so that leather shoes should cost the same as shoes made of cloth or plastic.

Econ 101.

Josephbleau said...

Starbucks should just face it, their future is to sell premium bud and edibles and have some chairs and tables for people to buzz out in, a Hopium Den.

In Boulder's Pearl Street I went into a public restroom and was awash in Iraq war vets in wheelchairs smoking, at 9AM.

Howard said...

Bruce Hayden just confessed to a serious nitrous Jones.

Static Ping said...

Yes, of course, I should take the word of a certifiable loon quoting a organization of certifiable loons who would not think twice about lying if it would serve their purposes. Then again, if you trust the Washington Post, you have general problems distinguishing fantasy from reality, so why not.

At least lizard people were not involved.

Static Ping said...

As to the issue at hand, I do not know how procurement works at Starbucks. If you do not know the internals, it is hard to gauge how much something costs to them. There is the matter of the volume they use; the more you buy the cheaper it gets, typically. Then there is the matter of spoilage. Cow milk it notorious for spoiling in disgusting fashion, but if you can use gallons of the stuff a day that's not really much of a concern if you have to chuck some of it. If you are using significantly less of the non-cow stuff, how long before that goes bad? How much of it gets thrown out? And would any sort of non-dairy milk work just as well in their coffee, or do they need to get specific stuff that actually works well? Did I mention transportation? Some things are a lot cheaper to transport than other things and that matters for your bottom line. If they both cost the same but shipping is three times higher for one of them, then that matters.

Keep in mind, I have no idea what the answers are to these questions, but I can assure you that Mr. Glue Hand has no idea either.

Note that I am not championing Starbucks here. I don't care about their company, I do not shop there, and it would not bother me one way or the other what happens to them in this internecine feud. But heck like I am taking orders from a dumbass actor who really needs to get a better therapist.

Michael K said...


Blogger Howard said...

Bruce Hayden just confessed to a serious nitrous Jones.


I have no idea what you mean. Take your medicine.

Bob Boyd said...

Cromwell's just a cheapskate. I want to pay more for milk wrung by hand from the low-swinging dugs of free-range vegans. That's how I know I'm getting the good stuff.

farmgirl said...

I’ve got to look into this subsidy for dairy. We barely break even as it is- and this year onward is going to hurt. California, I’d heard- always got their water subsidized. W/their growing seasons, they luck our butt on producing milk cheaper. I say more processing plants are needed, but the government hoops it takes, plus crazy expensive required equipment…

tim in vermont said...

I like Starbucks coffee black, but the place is basically what we used to call a “dairy bar.”

MadTownGuy said...

MadisonMan said...

"If you drink your coffee black, this is not a problem. Of course, that would mean you'd have to put up with Starbucks' heinous burnt coffee bean flavor."

I love dark roast and always drink it black. Chacun à son goût.

"I will always, always find a local establishment. Why fill the coffers of corporate coffee?"

Our Down syndrome daughter has worked for Starbucks at the same location for nearly 24 years. They have been very good to her as an employer and that's another reason I'm a loyal Starbucks customer. That's why.

MadTownGuy said...

Ann Althouse said...

"As I said there, I think Starbucks should redo the prices so that drinks with cow's milk and vegetarian milk substitutes are the same price."

How long will it be until non-vegan products are outlawed...because cow and pig farts?

Bunkypotatohead said...

Starbux is just selling indulgences to their clientele, same as the catholic church used to do.
Or think of it like carbon credits. If you want a better world it's gonna cost you.

Tina Trent said...

That's the nicest thing I've heard about a Starbucks, MadTownMan. And that is also what makes this Cromwell guy such a tool: to protest a policy made at corporate headquarters, he creates a mess for hourly workers to clean up.

Big of him.

PB said...

Why not just go to another coffee shop that doesn't charge extra? Similarly why don't other coffee shops advertise they don't charge extra? Don't just take away the marginal revenue from these non-milk milks, take away the whole revenue stream.