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For Immediate Release:
March 8, 2024
Contact:
Nicole Perreira 202-483-7382
Los Angeles – Celebrity chef and 73-year-old grandmother Babette Davis has superglued her hand to the café counter at the Starbucks store on W. Century Boulevard in Inglewood on International Women’s Day in support of PETA’s campaign calling out the coffee giant for charging extra for the vegan milks that it agrees are better for the planet—and which don’t rely on the exploitation of female cows. It’s being livestreamed on Facebook here.
“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,” says Davis. “My friends at PETA and I are calling on Starbucks to take its social responsibilities seriously and stop prioritizing profits over the health of the planet and our communities.”
The dairy industry tears calves away from their beloved mothers so that the milk meant to nourish them can be sold to humans. Once their bodies wear out from repeated pregnancies, they’re sent to slaughter. In addition, the dairy industry is driving the climate catastrophe. In the U.S., emissions from cows are the primary source of the greenhouse gas methane, which is 80 times more potent in warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
Despite publicly admitting that dairy is the biggest contributor to its carbon footprint and acknowledging the positive impact that dairy-free milk options have in furthering its environmental goals, Starbucks continues to charge as much as 90 cents more for them, lagging far behind its many competitors that offer vegan milk at no additional charge. Charging extra for vegan options also perpetuates dietary racism, given that 80% of Black and Indigenous Americans and more than 90% of Asian Americans are lactose intolerant. PETA supporters—including Succession star James Cromwell—have held “glue-ins” at the Starbucks café at the company’s Seattle headquarters and at the Starbucks store in New York’s Times Square to protest the upcharge. Sir Paul McCartney has also written to former and current Starbucks CEOs asking them to end the pro-dairy policy.
Davis—who’s also the visionary restaurateur behind the Inglewood hotspot Stuff I Eat—has frequently shared how a healthy vegan lifestyle has kept her fit and active well into her 70s and has been featured on national television shows, including The Doctors, Inside Edition, The Chew, and The Steve Harvey Show.
PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—points out that Every Animal Is Someone and offers free Empathy Kits for people who need a lesson in kindness. For more information, please visit PETA.org or follow the group on X, Facebook, or Instagram.
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