Wake Up! It’s Time To Talk Iced Coffee and Food Allergies
As I sit here relaying this information to you, my eyelids droop with exhaustion. After my 6am wake up for school, nothing sounds quite as appealing as a plain iced coffee, maybe with a splash of whole milk. For many, this caffeinated beverage is epitomized by America’s two favorites: Stabucks and Dunkin’ Donuts. Unfortunately for me and many others, their signature Hazelnut lattes and almond milk additives are prohibited. With my nut allergies, I become confined to the refrigerated, pre-made refreshments, as this is the only way I am able to adequately ensure my safety upon reading the FDA-required ingredients list. But, surely the most popular coffee chains take some preventative protocols for individuals like me, right? Wrong.
According to Restaurant Business, a site which provides data trends on various dining locations, the top ten coffee chains in the United States include Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Tim Hortons, Dutch Bros Coffee, Peet’s Coffee, Caribou Coffee, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and Biggby Coffee, which are ranked in descending order of popularity based on their 2019 sales. It is time we discuss the nut allergy protocols of the iced drinks at the top three locations of the aforementioned list.
At Starbucks, which has 15,778 locations across America, out of the 64 selections listed under the “Iced Coffee” category in their Core Beverage Nutritional and Allergen Information page, 14 contain nuts (which includes almond, cashew, and hazelnut). This 25% is quite alarmingly high, and we must remember it is merely accounting for the beverages that directly contain the allergen, not taking into consideration cross contamination, which must be high in such a fast-paced coffeehouse. In fact, in Starbucks’ 2019 publication of their allergen information (which seems to be the most recent), there is a large bolded statement explaining “WE CANNOT GUARANTEE THAT OUR BEVERAGES ARE FREE FROM ANY ALLERGENS AS WE USE SHARED EQUIPMENT TO STORE, PREPARE AND SERVE THEM. SOME BEVERAGE INGREDIENTS MAY BE PRODUCED IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE ALLERGENS ARE PRESENT.” This is a legally conscious way of stating that anyone with a somewhat severe allergy should likely stray away, as contamination is probable.
In terms of Dunkin’ Donuts, which has 8,500 restaurants across the United States, a similar message appears on their Allergy Ingredient Guide (which was updated quite recently), stating “Please be advised that our products may contain or may have been further processed on shared equipment that may have come in contact with allergens including Eggs, Fish, Milk, Peanuts, Sesame, Soy, Tree Nuts, Wheat, & Shellfish.” While I do not fault these institutions for providing the general public with such warnings (in fact, I am quite grateful for their honesty and concern), it is alarming that these coffee corporations do not account for those with nut allergies. I also condemn these companies for putting up the facade of progress for the allergy community. On the website of Dunkin’ Donuts, iced coffee, or what they call “the perfect pick-me-up,” has a prohibition sign under the “allergen” tab; under this indication that no allergens are present, one may be able to see the warning notice quoted above in a smaller, thinner font.
While it is considerate for Dunkin’ to also suggest that those with allergies ask their server, there is only so much one individual can do in terms of preventative measures, which does not guarantee safety.
Moving on to Tim Hortons, out of their 19 beverages listed in their Allergen Information page, 11 drinks contain tree nuts. This means that around 58% of the iced drinks at this coffeehouse are off limits for me and 3 million other Americans.
And, once again, the beloved legal message appears at the top of this document: “Although we take precautions, we cannot guarantee that cross-contact of allergens will not occur, and we do not assume responsibility for a person’s sensitivity or allergy to any food item provided in our restaurants.”
While I could continue these patterns for the following seven coffeehouses, I believe the pattern has become abundantly clear. Not only do these chains show blatant disregard for those with nut allergies by placing those ingredients in a majority of their iced beverages, but they also all provide feeble excuses to avoid any liability. The latter causes me to wonder if these corporations truly care about the safety of millions of allergy individuals or if they simply just provide this message out of fear of legal troubles. Either way, the message is futile, providing the information that any laymen could see by simply walking into a location: whole milk next to almond milk, the same blender for the hazelnut drink as the vanilla, the list continues.
The disregard of those with peanut and tree nut allergies by companies like Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Tim Hortons is regrettably just another example of the prevalent neglect of those with food allergies and lack of attempts to take productive measures to actually include them. As a society, we must begin not simply recognizing this somewhat discriminatory practice, but bringing about change with our discussion and with our concern.
