Starbucks Finally Exploring Vegan Breakfast Meats

After years of campaigning by Jane Velez-Mitchell and Animal Outlook, Starbucks may finally catch up with the demand for vegan food by offering a meaty vegan breakfast item. 

In a new sustainability commitment on its U.S. website, the coffee giant declares, “From more plant-based food and beverages to reusables, Starbucks is looking far and wide for opportunities to transform.”

With this update, Starbucks finally makes good on a promise we’ve heard for years: Since 2018, Animal Outlook has attended Starbucks’ annual shareholder meetings to urge it to offer vegan food items for its millions of customers to enjoy with their dairy-free coffee. At first, the chain pledged a new vegan food line. But after rolling out a vegan macadamia oat cookie, Starbucks quietly discontinued it.

Last year, we were again told that we would “continue to see work come from [Starbucks] in that area.” But while select cities have enjoyed a vegan cupcake (Miami), Dream Pops ice cream bars (LA), and protein-packed lentil bowls (DC, SF, NYC, and others), most of us have yet to see the fruits of this labor.

Meanwhile, outside the U.S., Starbucks has made good on its pledge: customers at Starbucks’ UK outlets are enjoying a variety of vegan sandwiches, breakfast items, and even mac and cheese. Starbucks Canada recently debuted vegan yogurt, while Starbucks Chile unveiled a vegan wrap nationwide after working with Vegetarianos Hoy.

So here at home, with your help, we’ve kept the pressure on the coffee giant with hundreds of tweets, messages and phone calls. Finally, Starbucks is hearing the buzz, and has told Bloomberg that it’s “exploring meat alternatives” for breakfast items. Could the chain be preparing a veggie sausage patty to rival that of its longtime competitor, Dunkin’? 

If it comes to fruition, this development would be an unprecedented step forward for farmed animals: Starbucks would put compassionate, sustainable vegan breakfast food front and center for 75 million U.S. coffee drinkers every month, saving countless animals’ lives.

Starbucks’ website says it aims to achieve these goals by 2030–but the animals, and the environment, don’t have that long to wait. Help us make sure Starbucks lives up to its promise right now: Send a quick tweet TODAY.