Less than a month after announcing they would stop selling items with trans fats in half of their U.S. stores, Starbucks announced Tuesday that many of its stores have begun limiting its dairy purchases to products known to be free of bovine growth hormones.
Starbucks has 5,668 stores in the United States, but the number affected by the change was not immediately available. The new policy will initially affect company-owned Starbucks outlets in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Alaska, Montana, Northern California and New England.
According to Starbucks spokesperson Sanja Gould, 37 percent of dairy products that Starbucks buys for U.S. outlets are bovine hormone-free compared with 27 percent last month. Gould did not give a timetable for implementing the standard at all of its stores.
While some are heralding the move by Starbucks, large-scale dairy operators say there is no scientific evidence to suggest any effect on humans from the recombinant bovine growth hormone.