Not really; it’s not like it takes up any more volume than any of the other various liquids any given Starbucks keeps in stock to make their beverages. If anything it’s easier to keep Soy/Almond/Oat Milk on hand since it doesn’t have to be refrigerated until opening.
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Cows aren’t used for people food at the end of their working lives – too old and tough – but rather other products and byproducts.
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yeah, almond milk is a terrible idea right now. not sure if the article gets into it, but 5 or 10 years back investment firms bought up large amounts of almond farms in california - and the way water rights work there, my understanding is, they can draw straight from the aquifers basically for free
like fossil fuel production, they’re avoiding all the externalities
i hear their “almond board” lobbying group ads on my public radio station all the time. it’s very disconcerting
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You really think a massive change to the global food industry happens in a single month, not years or decades or longer?
Peta’s not doing this because vegan milk is “better for the Earth”, they’re doing it because they ideologically don’t support “animal slavery”.
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Can we not give these assholes free publicity.
Annoying some minimum wage workers is relatively benign for them, but their previous record of hideous sexism and killing people’s pets should have earned them a wall of silence for their stunts.
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No way they could if the economy made any sense
… meaning, of course, yes they do
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They could. And it would make no difference to people who do not like espresso and do like café au lait.
Indeed - varieties of maize grown for animal feed are different from varieties grown for human feed. I once tried a cob of an animal feed corn and it was disgusting.
There’s a guy somewhere (Spain?) who specialises in personally selecting end-of-productive-life dairy cows for slaughter (after they spend a year or so out in pasture) and making what a couple of famous chefs on a visit described as possibly the best steak in the world. I wish I could remember the TV programme and provide a link. But it’s one cow at a time and very special and high-overhead treatment for the carcass.
Found a link which references Basque beef - so it was Spain, at least:
This US link says dairy cows are often sold to be made into lower-grade beef mince.
My bold below:
Most dairy cows, many people are surprised to find out, whether they’re raised in organic, grassfed, or conventional systems, are sold into the commodity market when they’re “retired.” Their meat is primarily turned into low-quality ground beef, the kind you’d find in a cheap frozen or fast food burger. In 2018, for example, 21 percent of the commercial beef supply in the US came from dairy cows. Farmers have no control over prices offered and often get very little for the animals; their meat is turned into the cheapest ground beef.
Here’s another UK source doing similar
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In New York at least cow milk is $1 to $2 more expensive than almond milk by the half gallon.
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Somewhat related: The male calves of dairy cows usually aren’t kept around very long, as they’re considered to be of low value:
It’s amazing to me that the industry hasn’t already widely taken advantage of sorting technology to use the X-chromosomes gametes when impregnating the cows.
Also, cows can’t give milk unless they’ve given birth first. You’d think that there would be a way to induce lactation artificially with hormones or something.
It’s pretty easy to demonstrate that they cost more.
I was talking to a high end coffee shop manager I know recently. They pull something like fifty cents to a dollar profit on a cup. The extra 25-50 cent cost by @jerwin 's napkin math could eat the entire profit on a product.
Coffee itself is the major product cost here, and prices have apparently skyrocketed. Part of why Starbucks pushes Orange Mocha Frappuccino is that ice and sugar syrup is vastly cheaper than coffee. Making those drinks much higher margin.
Yes and no. Animal feed is dent/flint corn. Tend to be different varieties, but same style of corn we grow for corn meal. Sweet corn isn’t even the main sort of people corn. And that corn meal corn is not pleasant if you try to eat it fresh.
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When I woke up this morning I didn’t think ‘I hope things are going better for the people in Ukraine’. I didn’t think ‘I hope the massive drought in India doesn’t kill millions of people in a famine’. I didn’t think ‘the basic, fundamental right of bodily autonomy for women is being stolen’.
Nope, I thought ‘I hope the vegans protesting a 10 cent upcharge for their premium coffee drink in a shop nobody poor can reasonably access at all are successful in their high priority advocacy’.
I mean, we all have things that motivate us to action. If this is the biggest issue for you, your life is pretty good.
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The dairy industry in the US, and probably most of the world, is heavily subsidized such that even economically cheaper, when subsidies are removed, alternatives are available they’re priced out. Plus, greed. Definitely greed is another factor. But over all, it’s the typical pseudo-free market rules of the USDA and other similar organizations that keep dairy prices artificially low.
It’s the same kind of story with the beef industry versus plant alternatives that are cheaper in reality but are made cost prohibitive due to active subsidization of beef. Ultimately, there is a place for removal of such subsidization but no one in the halls of power will ever do it since too many are making money.
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He’ll always be Zephram Cochrane to me.
ETA: When I lived in California I remember hearing that Almond milk was not that environmentally friendly, either: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/28/what-plant-milk-should-i-drink-almond-killing-bees-aoe
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I got the below from:
Example 6oz cappuccino:
Cost: 8p (coffee) + 6p (milk) = 14p
Sell for £2.20. Take off the VAT first resulting in the NET sale of £1.83.
Gross profit = £1.83 - £0.14 => £1.69 => 92.3% profit margin
Now that’s not including bills, wages, etc.
I was always under the impression that coffee shops were making money hand over fist.
And £2.20 is at least £1 cheaper than our local costa, yet 20p more expensive than our local indy.
ETA: I don’t know how old this website is.
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To calculate gross profit without including wages and overhead is just silly, because you can’t have a business without workers, space and utilities. After you deduct the costs of doing business your profits will be closer to 3-7%.
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That low?
Jeez, have I been misinformed.
I used to work in a pub, where the landlord explained to me the “rule of three” - his words.
When you charge £3 for a pint (those were the days), you calculate a third for product, a third for bills, a third for profit.
3-7%. You have to sell a lot of coffee.
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At culinary school food costs were supposed to max out at 30% of the plate price on the menu. If you could increase that margin it gave you room to lower the plate price on more expensive items, thereby getting people to subsidize the lobster at 30$ by paying for pasta at 20$. One reviewer at the NYTimes (I think) mentioned that one hot place had a 1,000% mark up on their pasta dish-which was something simple like spaghetti in marinara. This was in the 90s.
It’s the labor costs that make up the biggest expense. If you want people to be paid 15$/hr, then your coffee is going to cost more. For a big corporation that may mean a small increase across the board, like 25 cents per burger at McDs, but a small joint will have to make a larger jump.
Maybe if Starbucks positioned this up charge as a way to increase wages it would let people feel virtuous instead of upset. They probably wouldn’t actually raise wages, mind you.
Positioning the upcharge as an oppression against vegans is silly, since it drives the narrative that vegans are over-emotional, over-privileged rich folks who have stupid priorities.
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