Milk is Milk Blog by Alex Avery It’s hard to say, from OCA’s perspective, whether the Week of Action with Public Citizen’s Food and Water Watch urging Starbucks to buy milk produced without the use of productivity supplements was a success or not. I saw only a couple of mainstream news articles about it, and a press release from DC quotes Adam Eidenger, a pro-hemp, anti-baseball employee of the Organic Consumers Association. From where I sit, the quotes from an anonymous Starbucks spokesperson were very telling, and confirmed what I have written here in the past. It is NOT consumers who are asking for premium priced niche market milk.
The Ithaca Times published an article on the local event in Ithaca. This article quotes Tony Del Plato of Food & Water Watch - apparently no real consumers were available in Ithaca either. The article also quotes an anonymous Starbucks spokesperson countering FWW claims as saying, “During the last five years, Starbucks began making single-serve flavored organic milk, organic milk for our hand-crafted beverages and organic soymilk as an alternative to cow’s milk available to our U.S. company-operated stores. While consumer demand for organic milk in our stores is very minimal, Starbucks will continue to provide our customers with the choice of organic milk. Offering these choices is an appropriate way to provide products that meet Starbucks consumers’ expectations regarding the complex subject of bovine growth hormones.”
Bravo to Starbucks for listening to their customers and not to those special interest groups who claim to speak for them. I think it’s time for a group of consumers to file suit against OCA for giving consumers a bad name. Any interested parties please contact me here.