Starting on June 25, every Starbucks in the U.S. will post calorie counts of their coffee items and snacks on menu boards and pastry cases, according to the Chicago Tribune. The posted information will be available for standard drinks and snacks only, and will not factor in soy milk or sugar-free syrup.
The company said in a recent statement that its standard labels would encourage customers to customize their options with healthier options, such as nonfat milk and sugar-free syrups. "People are already customizing their drinks," Lisa Passe, a Starbucks spokeswoman, said in the company's statement.
Starbucks is joining other restaurant chains like McDonald's and Panera Bread in an attempt to attract more customers with transparent nutrition information. All 11,100 Starbucks will be required to post the calorie count information, regardless of whether or not it is located in a state with calorie count laws. Currently only several states have such laws, including New York, Maryland and California.
A pending U.S. health-law mandate by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that would require eateries with more than 20 locations to list calories may be partially driving this decision, according to Bloomberg. Starbucks cut high-fructose corn syrup from their pastry items in 2009, and has recently begun to sell salads with fewer than 450 calories. In 2007, the Seattle-based coffee company set a standard for all of its products to have fewer than 500 calories.
Researchers at Tufts University found however that labels at fast food restaurants tend to under-report calorie counts by about 7 calories, and 20 percent of foods surveyed had at least 100 more calories than the companies claimed, Metro reports.
"There's no measure in the (federal) regulations to address accuracy," Lorien Urban, one of the scientists who worked on the Tufts study, said to Metro. "It's yet to be determined how that will play out nationwide."
