People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has been pushing Starbucks to lower the price of non-dairy milk additions to drinks for awhile, but now it seems the group has taken an unconventional step to try and sway the coffee chain: It has bought Starbucks stock.
PETA announced the purchase in a press release on Monday, saying it had "purchased the minimum number of shares in the company required to submit shareholder resolutions and to attend and speak at Starbucks’s annual meetings." It explained it was doing so to lobby Starbucks to lower the price of adding a non-dairy milk to some of its drinks.
PETA confirmed to Delish that it had purchased one $88.68 share.
“Many coffee drinkers are lactose intolerant, and PETA is intolerant of cruelty to cows, which is why charging extra for soy and nut milks is hard to swallow,” says PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman: “PETA is heading to Starbucks’ boardroom to urge the company to end this unfair surcharge.”
To clarify, according to a past Starbucks statement, "adding a splash of any alternative milk to brewed or iced coffee, cold brew or Americano is always offered free of charge" but if you add it to another type of handcrafted beverage, say a seasonal latte, that's when you might "incur a small charge," which Fast Company reported as being 80 cents.
This isn't the first time PETA has purchased shares in a company in order to try and sway their practices. PETA called for supporters to contact Starbucks earlier this year to try and convince them to get rid of the charge.
