I think a lot of people have no idea that many dairy alternatives are essentially the same price now. And that's at a retail consumer level where the markups are biggest in the chain, bulk wholesale like what Starbucks pays would have an even smaller gap.

People are assuming there's a massive difference in price, that just doesn't really exist anymore... And that also ignores the absolutely MASSIVE markup Starbucks has for their coffee in the first place. It definitely doesn't cost Starbucks $.50 to use Oat milk instead of regular milk, but that's what they might charge the consumer for the substitution in a $6 coffee that cost them maybe $0.50 to make.

What's absurd is thinking that this argument makes logical sense. Do you think Starbucks buys milk at the grocery store? What do you think the ratio of milk to each milk alternative is? 100:1? 1000:1? The scale at which the purchase each would greatly affect the price.

When I worked at a restaurant that used a lot of milk it came in a 3 or 5 gallon plastic sack that went into a dispensing machine. Milk alternatives are likely purchased by the case in consumer packaging. The cost is entirely different.