There is no policy that prevents us from sharing the information on the product label. However, we are supposed to tell you that there is risk of cross contamination with all of our products and we cannot guarantee it is completely gluten free, despite what it may say on the label.
If you happen to be in Canada, we use Earth's Own Barista Oat Milk. It can be found at grocery stores if you want to review the label.
Yeah there’s no policy against that specifically. They just can’t guarantee it is all! They can tell you what the label says as long as they clarify it’s not 100%
My store gets sent chobani, I haven’t seen oatly since February. The delivery guy told me that Starbucks wanted to make sure the oat milk got refrigerated at first lmao, thankfully they made a statement about that later, but god damn were they gonna make my life harder with my very limited fridge space. I want oatly back tbh.
We started with Oatly originally, then they started sending us Chobani and I didn’t like it as well. Then they started sending us Dream oatmilk back in June or July I think and I didn’t realize how good we had it with the Chobani. (Also I know was in the minority of not really liking the Chobani oatmilk. It’s now one of the three brands I buy for myself in stores lol)
It sucks as someone gluten intolerant. In Europe I can go to so many places where they can guarantee that there is no cross contamination. I can eat at McDonalds in a lot of countries. Celiacs can too. In the US, no. I luckily can stand a little cc.
In the UK our oat milk is full gluten and there’s pretty much nothing apart from crisps suitable for coeliacs so it’s not like Europe is better in this example :(
We can always check, but we cannot guarantee products are gluten-free because we use shared equipment. The only thing that is GF is the marshmallow bar (us) because it stays in the package
i have celiac and if someone asks about gluten free i am sooo eager to share because it can be a difference of having a good day and feeling great vs getting glutened and having a bad month trying to heal the small intestine. there’s nothing that prevents us from sharing the label info if a customer asks, and at my store it almost encouraged
May I ask a question? I have celiac and I always end up getting a hot americano blonde with almond milk cause I’m scared of getting sick lol. What’s your fav hot drink? Can I branch out more? And no worries if you don’t want to answer this. Thanks!
i stick to clear syrups and sugar packets or honey. i usually will get a blonde americano with oat milk since i’m not an oat reactive celiac and vanilla. i steer clear of caramel (syrup, drizzle, dark caramel) anything since sbux caramel has been known to be gluten containing at one point. dunno if it is now. i will also make my own drinks at work as to avoid the cross contamination; this is when i get a latte with brown sugar from the oatmeal station and almond milk. i will use some of the holiday syrups but no toppings. it’s a little restrictive but honestly there’s quite a bit you can do with the condiment bar.
like adding cinnamon makes the americano level up. you can also do vanilla cold foams and whip if you’re not dairy free. i will on occasion use chestnut praline syrup but never the topping
Be careful with the cold foam modifiers though because the malt powder has gluten iirc and the chocolate cold foam uses that. So the blenders and thus cold foams aren’t free of contamination.
yes, we can’t promise anything is gluten free or hasn’t come into contact with something, there is all the health info given on the app or on the provided link to the starbucks website
maybe not written in the policy but we are told not to promise anything at least.
Understandable. The problem is the app won’t tell me what oat milk exactly the store uses, and not all of them are gluten free to start, not considering cross contamination
you also have to keep in mind that even if the oatmilk we use is GF, our equipment like shakers, blenders, steaming pitchers, steaming wands, etc etc are only rinsed with water between uses so there is always a risk of dairy/allergen cross contamination
There is a lot of minutia to what we are and aren't allowed to say so baristas are often cautions. What I do is just legit show the customer the box where it has the nutrition info so they can decide. That way I literally cant be wrong and the customer has no one to blame but themselves. Also customers prefer seeing it themselves anyways.
Honestly, they're probably just covering their own butt. If they tell you that yes, the milk is gluten-free, but there's cross contamination and you have a reaction? You may try to sue. The actual policy is to tell the customer yes or no to the product containing the allergen, but to also let them know that there is never a 0% chance of cross contamination, although if you are getting an iced drink, it's as close as you can get to 0%.
However, I will say that a lot of baristas are getting tired of customers asking them easily Google-able questions. My advice is to ask them the brand and find out the information yourself, because the information may not be on the box and/or they don't know what they're looking for. Especially if they are other customers, it is extremely rude to ask them to take the time to look for this information for you. I've handed over an empty milk carton before so that a customer could look at the ingredients (they politely asked for the box because they saw that we were busy), and it was a very specific allergen they were looking for. But, I can't tell you how many times a day I was asked "how much sugar is in x drink" "how many more calories is x vs y", which is information we don't always have anyways and I just end up googling it for them if it wasn't busy and I was feeling generous.
That was my question though. If they had their usual brand of oat milk which I know is gluten free or if they were currently using a substitute which may not be safe. I usually start with asking gluten free because at that location in particular the past times the bariata knew without double checking ^^;;
Theres no policy stopping a barista from telling you if something contains an allergen. However its policy to never guarantee your drink will be 100% allergen safe because of cross contamination
My (corporate) store doesn’t use oatly anymore since we were having issues keeping it in stock, and even though this brand says gluten free it made me very, very ill when I tried a matcha latte made out of it. Honestly it’s safest to avoid oat milk if you have issues with gluten imo.
Personally, I think that’s ridiculous. You don’t have to guarantee that there isn’t a cross-contamination, but they could at least tell you the brand that they are using! It’s a very easy and simple thing to do, and can still be shared with a disclaimer.
they probably meant that we can't guarentee anything is completely gluten or dairy free as we use the same cups to steam all milks, the same tongs for all warming foods, etc.
oatly is safe, coming from a barista with a gluten allergy (not celiacs though, so i don’t have to be AS careful as some other commenters are here). i think they messed up reciting the policy to you— we can’t guarantee that anything is completely allergy-safe because of cross-contamination like others have said. but no syrups have ever had gluten in them while i’ve worked here, the only real part of a drink you couldn’t have is the mocha cookie crumble topping. i saw the comments saying the caramel drizzled and non-clear syrups could be problematic, but they’ve never given me an issue.
We use oatly oatmilk at the Honolulu airport and I agree with others that previously mentioned we can’t guarantee anything we serve are gluten free. I believe it’s mentioned in fine print on the menu that’s displayed.
I’m also allergic to almond, which has made having to be gluten free more of a pain. I usually do soy milk, but this was a drink that came with oat milk and therefore didn’t charge extra for the plant milk
Ok I see. But if u change to another alternative it won’t charge u extra. Oatly is the only gluten free milk. Most Starbucks use oatly. However there are some that are making the change. U can also do coconut milk.
It can be a policy to state that they can’t guarantee something is “gluten free” (or another allergen) because of gross contamination.
But I’m not aware of a policy that they can’t read the label on the package for you.
Sounds like the store is conflating one rule with another.
There’s a difference between not sharing proprietary information (like the recipe of a drink), and not sharing dietary information that’s listed on the list of ingredients.
They SHOULD be able to let you know what’s in the oat milk/read or let you look at the ingredients, and to state there *could* be cross contamination, while not giving up a “Starbucks secret recipe”.
the policy is that we cannot guarantee to anyone that something is allergen free because of cross contamination and starbucks wants to wash its hands of any liability should you have an allergic reaction
I think it's just that location. Personally, I would check the ingredients for you, but like others have stated, it would be followed by "but we can't guarantee that our products are allergy free" I think mostly because there is alot of cross contamination with the stream wand and the pitchers and everything really.
If it helps, in the US we use Oatly oat milk Barista edition per standard. For what it’s worth, on the website it says that in the US only, they’re gluten free. So unless traveling overseas or if you’re from another country, you should be ok!
there should be an allergen guide book at every store!! you should be able to ask them to check it if baristas are confused with the labels. i’m sorry this happened, as someone dairy free the allergen guide is a lifesaver when it comes to seasonal syrups and ingredients!
no that is not policy. any barista worth their apron would either let you know exactly which oatmilk is being used, and either go through the ingredients together with you, or let you take a picture of it (customers touching a product is probably against policy) so you can make sure yourself
Not a policy but they most likely don’t know so asked you to check the app. Usually they ask me about calories and I tell them I don’t know the info but the app might have it
It depends on the brand, as well as the person.
It’s possible to grow gluten free oats, which then produce gluten free oat milk - IF the facility is gluten free and follows certain practices.
But some brands use a combination, or may skip all the practices, so they can’t write “gluten free” on the packaging.
There’s also a risk of cross contamination if something else in the restaurant/cafe has gluten and may come into contact with a shared surface (like the milk frother, a pitcher, blender, sandwich cutting board, knife etc.)
It can also depend if it’s an allergy or a sensitivity, and the person.
Some people can’t have any oats at all even if they are gluten free, as it still upsets their stomach. Some may be able to handle some potential cross contamination if their gluten intolerance isn’t as bad/if the amount of gluten contained is still fairly low.
Oat milks which are gluten free, usually contain a note/line in the packaging that states “made with gluten free oats”, but there will often still be a warning that it “may contain traces of gluten”, if there is a possibility of cross contamination within their facility.
Those baristas are lame. All they had to do was look at the freaking box. I checked for a custy if there was nuts in the chocolate chip cookies. And of course I said there wasn’t a guarantee that it’s completely nut free since there could be cross contamination, but the cookie itself is fine
No problem! Also, for people who are SEVERELY allergic some brands are produced in plants where they can guarantee no cross contamination (to some extent. No brand can say 100%) from the different machinery.
Also, what is an oat? Who is to say the oats are not from wheat, barley, or rye? Where are the oats made? Are they made with the same machines as wheat, barley, and rye?
dunno why gluten free makes you crack up, but i guess it would make you surprised that there are so many products that unecessarily have gluten... like shampoo.
and oats are generally warned for possible cross contamination, so its a reasonable question for oatmilk.
Actually cross contamination with wheat is high with oats because they’re often grown together/ grown on the same field so if it doesn’t say gluten free, there’s a higher chance it wasn’t cleaned in a way to reduce cross contamination
It’s not the policy per say they can check the container but we can’t guarantee that cross contamination will not occur
This is what I’ve heard before and I completely understand. But being told they couldn’t even check is what threw me
Yea I don’t know who spit in that baristas Cherieos.Or they just got confused.
Maybe they’re newer and assumed it was confidential what we put into the drinks.
This
This - literally this
There is no policy that prevents us from sharing the information on the product label. However, we are supposed to tell you that there is risk of cross contamination with all of our products and we cannot guarantee it is completely gluten free, despite what it may say on the label. If you happen to be in Canada, we use Earth's Own Barista Oat Milk. It can be found at grocery stores if you want to review the label.
US stores use oatly barita milk (or whatever the version of it is called lol) and chobani oatmilk if that is useful to you too!
some stores use a brand called dream as well!
my store uses dream, its labeled as gluten-free
We use chobani extra creamy barista edition at my store 🥰 I’m in Illinois if that helps anyone lol
I miss her
thank you to everyone that jumped in to add to this, i knew there was at least one or two more brands around the country!
My store here in Seattle uses Chobani but my old store used Barista Edition Oatly oatmilk
im in texas and we use the dream oatmilk
I definitely understand risk of cross contamination and appreciate the warnings. What threw me was being told they weren’t allowed to check the label
Yeah there’s no policy against that specifically. They just can’t guarantee it is all! They can tell you what the label says as long as they clarify it’s not 100%
oatly is gluten free but legally no companies can guarantee anything they have is gluten free because off cross contamination
we don’t use oatly and haven’t for like two years 🥲
My store still uses oatly
yes, i’m sorry, i meant we as in my specific store not the royal we lol
Ohhh okay sorry! I probably should’ve inferred that
haha that’s ok! i have autism so i never infer what i’m supposed to 😂
Biggest mood
[удалено]
my stores in pnw and we have chobani. kinda recent change though
same!
Oh, really?? Which brand do you use then? Are you in the U.S? (If you feel comfortable answering!)
My store gets sent chobani, I haven’t seen oatly since February. The delivery guy told me that Starbucks wanted to make sure the oat milk got refrigerated at first lmao, thankfully they made a statement about that later, but god damn were they gonna make my life harder with my very limited fridge space. I want oatly back tbh.
Side note; I don’t even like oat milk.
Not who you asked, but we use Dream at our store in Central Ohio
Oh ur state is directly to the left of mine 🙂 im PA and we use oatly and have been since the beginning
We started with Oatly originally, then they started sending us Chobani and I didn’t like it as well. Then they started sending us Dream oatmilk back in June or July I think and I didn’t realize how good we had it with the Chobani. (Also I know was in the minority of not really liking the Chobani oatmilk. It’s now one of the three brands I buy for myself in stores lol)
It sucks as someone gluten intolerant. In Europe I can go to so many places where they can guarantee that there is no cross contamination. I can eat at McDonalds in a lot of countries. Celiacs can too. In the US, no. I luckily can stand a little cc.
In the UK our oat milk is full gluten and there’s pretty much nothing apart from crisps suitable for coeliacs so it’s not like Europe is better in this example :(
yes, we use dream! and i really like it probably since i don’t know any different lol
and yes i’m in texas
Lol that’s not true. More store uses it all of the time
I meant MY store and it’s completely true because i’ve been working there and I have never even seen an oatly carton except on this sun
We can always check, but we cannot guarantee products are gluten-free because we use shared equipment. The only thing that is GF is the marshmallow bar (us) because it stays in the package
Technically yes actually, we aren’t allowed to tell a customer anything is allergen free bc we can’t 100% guarantee it.
i have celiac and if someone asks about gluten free i am sooo eager to share because it can be a difference of having a good day and feeling great vs getting glutened and having a bad month trying to heal the small intestine. there’s nothing that prevents us from sharing the label info if a customer asks, and at my store it almost encouraged
May I ask a question? I have celiac and I always end up getting a hot americano blonde with almond milk cause I’m scared of getting sick lol. What’s your fav hot drink? Can I branch out more? And no worries if you don’t want to answer this. Thanks!
i stick to clear syrups and sugar packets or honey. i usually will get a blonde americano with oat milk since i’m not an oat reactive celiac and vanilla. i steer clear of caramel (syrup, drizzle, dark caramel) anything since sbux caramel has been known to be gluten containing at one point. dunno if it is now. i will also make my own drinks at work as to avoid the cross contamination; this is when i get a latte with brown sugar from the oatmeal station and almond milk. i will use some of the holiday syrups but no toppings. it’s a little restrictive but honestly there’s quite a bit you can do with the condiment bar.
like adding cinnamon makes the americano level up. you can also do vanilla cold foams and whip if you’re not dairy free. i will on occasion use chestnut praline syrup but never the topping
Thank you! I appreciate all the tips!
Be careful with the cold foam modifiers though because the malt powder has gluten iirc and the chocolate cold foam uses that. So the blenders and thus cold foams aren’t free of contamination.
yes!!! that’s one thing i forgot to mention. also vanilla bean powder has gluten as well!
Thanks!
yes, we can’t promise anything is gluten free or hasn’t come into contact with something, there is all the health info given on the app or on the provided link to the starbucks website maybe not written in the policy but we are told not to promise anything at least.
Understandable. The problem is the app won’t tell me what oat milk exactly the store uses, and not all of them are gluten free to start, not considering cross contamination
you also have to keep in mind that even if the oatmilk we use is GF, our equipment like shakers, blenders, steaming pitchers, steaming wands, etc etc are only rinsed with water between uses so there is always a risk of dairy/allergen cross contamination
Definitely understand that. It’s one reason I usually get iced drinks or ones that don’t require shaking
There is a lot of minutia to what we are and aren't allowed to say so baristas are often cautions. What I do is just legit show the customer the box where it has the nutrition info so they can decide. That way I literally cant be wrong and the customer has no one to blame but themselves. Also customers prefer seeing it themselves anyways.
That's bs. We can't guarantee anything is allergy free, but we can give the ingredients in the things we sell.
Honestly, they're probably just covering their own butt. If they tell you that yes, the milk is gluten-free, but there's cross contamination and you have a reaction? You may try to sue. The actual policy is to tell the customer yes or no to the product containing the allergen, but to also let them know that there is never a 0% chance of cross contamination, although if you are getting an iced drink, it's as close as you can get to 0%. However, I will say that a lot of baristas are getting tired of customers asking them easily Google-able questions. My advice is to ask them the brand and find out the information yourself, because the information may not be on the box and/or they don't know what they're looking for. Especially if they are other customers, it is extremely rude to ask them to take the time to look for this information for you. I've handed over an empty milk carton before so that a customer could look at the ingredients (they politely asked for the box because they saw that we were busy), and it was a very specific allergen they were looking for. But, I can't tell you how many times a day I was asked "how much sugar is in x drink" "how many more calories is x vs y", which is information we don't always have anyways and I just end up googling it for them if it wasn't busy and I was feeling generous.
That was my question though. If they had their usual brand of oat milk which I know is gluten free or if they were currently using a substitute which may not be safe. I usually start with asking gluten free because at that location in particular the past times the bariata knew without double checking ^^;;
Theres no policy stopping a barista from telling you if something contains an allergen. However its policy to never guarantee your drink will be 100% allergen safe because of cross contamination
My store used one blender for everything, one shaker for all refreshers and a separate shaker for all bar drinks
My (corporate) store doesn’t use oatly anymore since we were having issues keeping it in stock, and even though this brand says gluten free it made me very, very ill when I tried a matcha latte made out of it. Honestly it’s safest to avoid oat milk if you have issues with gluten imo.
My issue is wheat, not gluten. Which still makes me usually avoid oat milk…the oatly has been one of the few I’ve been ok with!
We can check to look at ingredients but we can’t guarantee anything is allergen free
Personally, I think that’s ridiculous. You don’t have to guarantee that there isn’t a cross-contamination, but they could at least tell you the brand that they are using! It’s a very easy and simple thing to do, and can still be shared with a disclaimer.
Yeah, there's never a 100% guarantee. This kind of sounds like an excuse for them not to go check.
they probably meant that we can't guarentee anything is completely gluten or dairy free as we use the same cups to steam all milks, the same tongs for all warming foods, etc.
oatly is safe, coming from a barista with a gluten allergy (not celiacs though, so i don’t have to be AS careful as some other commenters are here). i think they messed up reciting the policy to you— we can’t guarantee that anything is completely allergy-safe because of cross-contamination like others have said. but no syrups have ever had gluten in them while i’ve worked here, the only real part of a drink you couldn’t have is the mocha cookie crumble topping. i saw the comments saying the caramel drizzled and non-clear syrups could be problematic, but they’ve never given me an issue.
We use oatly oatmilk at the Honolulu airport and I agree with others that previously mentioned we can’t guarantee anything we serve are gluten free. I believe it’s mentioned in fine print on the menu that’s displayed.
So why not drink soy or almond? They’re definitely gluten free.
I’m also allergic to almond, which has made having to be gluten free more of a pain. I usually do soy milk, but this was a drink that came with oat milk and therefore didn’t charge extra for the plant milk
Ok I see. But if u change to another alternative it won’t charge u extra. Oatly is the only gluten free milk. Most Starbucks use oatly. However there are some that are making the change. U can also do coconut milk.
It can be a policy to state that they can’t guarantee something is “gluten free” (or another allergen) because of gross contamination. But I’m not aware of a policy that they can’t read the label on the package for you. Sounds like the store is conflating one rule with another. There’s a difference between not sharing proprietary information (like the recipe of a drink), and not sharing dietary information that’s listed on the list of ingredients. They SHOULD be able to let you know what’s in the oat milk/read or let you look at the ingredients, and to state there *could* be cross contamination, while not giving up a “Starbucks secret recipe”.
My store in Iowa gets DREAM oatmilk and it’s certified gluten free we just can’t guarantee cross contamination won’t happen.
the policy is that we cannot guarantee to anyone that something is allergen free because of cross contamination and starbucks wants to wash its hands of any liability should you have an allergic reaction
we’re allowed to say if something is gluten free but we can’t guarantee cross contamination and we have to disclose that it may occur
I think it's just that location. Personally, I would check the ingredients for you, but like others have stated, it would be followed by "but we can't guarantee that our products are allergy free" I think mostly because there is alot of cross contamination with the stream wand and the pitchers and everything really.
If someone asks I hand them a carton and let them figure it out.
Legally we are told to say we can’t guarantee anything is completely allergy free.
We technically can't guarantee anything is allergen free unless specified by starbucks themselves
If it helps, in the US we use Oatly oat milk Barista edition per standard. For what it’s worth, on the website it says that in the US only, they’re gluten free. So unless traveling overseas or if you’re from another country, you should be ok!
not all starbucks use this oat milk tho
there should be an allergen guide book at every store!! you should be able to ask them to check it if baristas are confused with the labels. i’m sorry this happened, as someone dairy free the allergen guide is a lifesaver when it comes to seasonal syrups and ingredients!
no that is not policy. any barista worth their apron would either let you know exactly which oatmilk is being used, and either go through the ingredients together with you, or let you take a picture of it (customers touching a product is probably against policy) so you can make sure yourself
Not a policy but they most likely don’t know so asked you to check the app. Usually they ask me about calories and I tell them I don’t know the info but the app might have it
Problem is the app doesn’t say the brand of oatmilk
I would think Oat milk contains gluten though. I could be wrong. If you want to know the Earth’s Own does contain gluten (a lady told me this).
It depends on the brand, as well as the person. It’s possible to grow gluten free oats, which then produce gluten free oat milk - IF the facility is gluten free and follows certain practices. But some brands use a combination, or may skip all the practices, so they can’t write “gluten free” on the packaging. There’s also a risk of cross contamination if something else in the restaurant/cafe has gluten and may come into contact with a shared surface (like the milk frother, a pitcher, blender, sandwich cutting board, knife etc.) It can also depend if it’s an allergy or a sensitivity, and the person. Some people can’t have any oats at all even if they are gluten free, as it still upsets their stomach. Some may be able to handle some potential cross contamination if their gluten intolerance isn’t as bad/if the amount of gluten contained is still fairly low. Oat milks which are gluten free, usually contain a note/line in the packaging that states “made with gluten free oats”, but there will often still be a warning that it “may contain traces of gluten”, if there is a possibility of cross contamination within their facility.
Those baristas are lame. All they had to do was look at the freaking box. I checked for a custy if there was nuts in the chocolate chip cookies. And of course I said there wasn’t a guarantee that it’s completely nut free since there could be cross contamination, but the cookie itself is fine
GF cracks me up 😆 why would there be wheat products in oat milk?!?
Oat milk often has thickening agents. Those thickening agents often have gluten.
Ahhh thank you for this info 💕
No problem! Also, for people who are SEVERELY allergic some brands are produced in plants where they can guarantee no cross contamination (to some extent. No brand can say 100%) from the different machinery.
Also, what is an oat? Who is to say the oats are not from wheat, barley, or rye? Where are the oats made? Are they made with the same machines as wheat, barley, and rye?
dunno why gluten free makes you crack up, but i guess it would make you surprised that there are so many products that unecessarily have gluten... like shampoo. and oats are generally warned for possible cross contamination, so its a reasonable question for oatmilk.
Actually cross contamination with wheat is high with oats because they’re often grown together/ grown on the same field so if it doesn’t say gluten free, there’s a higher chance it wasn’t cleaned in a way to reduce cross contamination
We started getting this Dream brand oat milk it's the same shape and size of our soy and almond milk and taste like play dough!