A ‘Grande’ Victory! PETA Protests and Persuasion Make Starbucks Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

It was a tall order, but PETA and our loyal klatch of supporters made it happen! Nonstop demonstrations, glue-ins by James Cromwell and a Buddhist monk, café occupations from Seattle to Nova Scotia, shareholder resolutions, a plea from Sir Paul McCartney on a billboard near its headquarters, and other actions pushed Starbucks to drop its upcharge on vegan milks in the US and Canada!

Starbucks in the UK, France, and Germany had already ended their vegan upcharge, and locations in India and China offer at least one vegan milk at no extra cost. But in the US, Starbucks stubbornly kept charging more for compassionate options. Not anymore!

Udder Nonsense

Starbucks is one of the world’s largest consumers of cow’s milk – there’s more milk than coffee in its lattes and other drinks. This means misery for mother cows – who are repeatedly and forcibly impregnated (raped by a factory farmer who inserts an arm and a syringe inside her) – and heartbreak for their beloved calves, who are scared and grieving when they’re torn from their mothers soon after birth. It also brews environmental catastrophe. Despite admitting that cow’s milk is its biggest source of CO2 emissions, Starbucks penalized consumers – charging up to 90¢/70p extra per drink – for choosing cruelty-free, Earth-friendly vegan milks. PETA wasn’t about to sit by!

Down With the Upcharge!

When Starbucks ignored our polite pleas to chuck the vegan upcharge, we turned up the heat. Protesters occupied the café at Starbucks’ headquarters for over 100 days straight, hijacked would-be customers by giving away RISE Brewing Co. oat milk lattes outside the chain’s locations, and convinced many people to get their caffeine fix elsewhere. At one peaceful sit-in, employees called police, who wrongfully arrested a 13-yearold, shoving him face down on a table and handcuffing him. They eventually dropped the charges.

A Latte Help From Our Friends

PETA Honorary Director James Cromwell also risked arrest when, in a bold move that grabbed headlines everywhere from CNN to Rolling Stone, he superglued his hand to a café counter in protest. And he had another salvo up his sleeve: a satirical video that popped up on the smartphones of the java giant’s top brass.

Coffee Wars actor Kate Nash, PETA Honorary Director Alan Cumming, and Sir Paul McCartney made strong appeals to the company to stop the upcharge, and over 160,000 PETA supporters joined them. When PETA became a Starbucks shareholder to push for change from within, PETA Honorary Director Alicia Silverstone put its bigwigs in the hot seat at an annual meeting.

“By incentivizing dairy, Starbucks is helping to prop up an industry that is built on the subjugation of females, is environmentally destructive, and penalizes the millions of Americans who are lactose intolerant, most of whom are people of color like me.” —Renowned chef Babette Davis, who superglued her hand to a Starbucks counter in protest

The company’s execs tried to hide in their mansions, but PETA took the message to their doorsteps – even sending our “cows” to dump wheelbarrows of manure outside its chief sustainability officer’s home to remind him that dairy stinks.

From Calves in Cups to Polar Bear Parades

Outside Starbucks’ stores, PETA’s hyper-realistic “dead calf” in a cup got customers thinking about the true price of cow’s milk, and our pack of “polar bears” illustrated how ignoring cows’ methane emissions harms all species by fueling the climate catastrophe. PETA supporters even encased their feet in blocks of concrete and blocked the drive-through at multiple locations to cement the message.

Spare Change for You, Big Change for Cows

Finally, the hard line crumbled: A new Starbucks CEO took charge, and PETA paused our campaign to give him a chance to do the right thing. And he did: Starbucks’ vegan upcharge is history! It’s a massive change for mother cows and their calves, and it means more spare change in plant milk buyers’ pockets.