‘De-calf Your Coffee’: Vegan Message Percolates in Madison Ahead of ‘National Dairy Month’

For Immediate Release:
May 22, 2018

Contact:
Audrey Shircliff 202-483-7382

As politicians from top dairy-producing states seek to ban the word “milk” from packaging and advertising for every form of milk except dairy milk, PETA is launching a campaign in coffee shops across the country—including in Madison—with cup sleeves that read, “De-Calf Your Coffee: Dairy Is Udder Cruelty. Choose Almond, Soy, or Coconut Milk.”

PETA is targeting Madison because it’s the hometown of Sen. Tammy Baldwin, sponsor of the controversial Dairy Pride Act—which aims to “prohibit the sale of any food that uses the market name of a dairy product but is not the milk of a hooved animal.” Before June—National Dairy Month—nearly 20,000 of PETA’s cruelty-free creamer sleeves will adorn cups of coffee in the state capitals of New York, California, Pennsylvania, and Ohio as well as Wisconsin, “America’s Dairyland.” Among the cafés in Madison with PETA’s sleeves are People’s Bakery and the Sunroom Cafe.

“Learning of the conditions under which cow’s milk is obtained leaves a sour taste in your mouth,” says PETA Vice President Dan Mathews. “That’s why so many consumers are ditching the dairy variety for coconut, almond, oat, hazelnut, and soy milks.”

Cows produce milk in order to nourish their own young. But on today’s factory farms, cows are artificially inseminated (raped by syringe) and calves are torn away from their loving mothers within a day of birth, causing both extreme distress. Mother cows sometimes wail for their calves for days after separation. Male calves are often locked up in veal crates, and females are sentenced to the same miserable fate as their mothers. Learn more here.

PETA launched the national campaign through New York–based Brite Media Group, which contracts with independent coffee shops across the country, and has plans to place the ads in more top dairy-producing states in June.