No more paying extra for plant milks: Peet’s Coffee is latest to drop vegan surcharge, makes it free to switch out cow’s milk for oat and almond
The popularity of plant milks in the US has seen an industry shift in recent months with dozens of the country’s largest coffee chains ditching the plant milk surcharge.
Credit: Peet’s Coffee
Coffee shops in the US have long charged customers extra for choosing plant milks in hot drinks.
For years, the so-called ‘vegan surcharge’ has been labeled unfair by customers and campaign groups who say the fee is a barrier that prevents more people from choosing more sustainable, animal-free milk choices.
But in recent months, there has been a steady flow of announcements from major coffee chains to say that they are now finally ditching the surcharge and making it free for customers to swap cow’s milk for plant milks.
Now this week, Peet’s Coffee became perhaps the last of the biggest coffee chains in the US to make the change. The change, which will be implemented nationwide starting June 4, 2025, means all customers at Peet’s Coffee will be able to personalize their beverages with non-dairy options including oat, almond, and Ripple plant-based milk at the same price as all milk-based drinks.
Just days before the announcement, musician and longtime animal advocate Paul McCartney wrote to the chain on behalf of a new PETA campaign that was set to call on Peet’s Coffee to drop the surcharge.
Peet’s Coffee’s rapid - and positive - response to the campaign highlights how the wider coffee chain industry has ushered in a new era where paying extra for plant milks looks to be a thing of the past.
“Coffee chains are waking up to the fact that kind customers are ditching dairy and won’t tolerate being punished for making humane and climate-friendly choices,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk. “PETA is celebrating Peet’s adoption of the new industry standard and is urging the few remaining holdouts, like Caribou Coffee and The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, to join in to save mother cows from being separated from their beloved calves and reduce methane emissions.”
The positive industry trend to ditch the surcharge was perhaps put into motion after the world’s largest coffee chain, Starbucks, announced late last year that it will no longer charge customers in the US and Canada to substitute cow’s milk for plant-based milk.
The policy, which applies to all of Starbucks' 15,000-plus locations in the US, seems to have encouraged other chains to follow suit so as not to be left behind.
Dunkin’, the second-largest coffee chain in the US, recently announced it too will drop the surcharge, alongside similar bans at Tim Hortons, Scooter’s Coffee, and fast-growing brand Dutch Bros over the last few months.
Credit: Starbucks
Whilst it was once seen as a more niche choice, the popularity of plant-based milks has steadily increased over the last decade with the likes of oat milk lattes and almond milk espressos now mainstays in the coffee industry.
In fact, Starbucks says that adding plant-based milk is the second most popular customer request - only behind adding a shot of espresso.
According to stats before it dropped the plant milk surcharge, almost half of Starbucks customers in the US paid to modify their beverage with non-dairy milk. Now that the surcharge has been removed, customers will see a price reduction of more than 10 percent, the company said in a statement when it first announced its revised policy.
As more and more coffee chains remove the barrier of a surcharge, customers will find it easier than ever to switch cow’s milk with plant-based milks that are friendlier to the animals and the planet.
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