Executive Briefing
Blue Bottle is testing oat milk ‘as the default option’
Also: Lunch is back! And more of Chipotle’s reopening takeaways.
By Dan Frommer on Friday, July 23, 2021 at 8:00 am
Blue Bottle Coffee, the high-end chain, is testing offering oat milk “as the default option” in at least two of its US shops.
“May we recommend oat milk?” reads a sign near the Square register at one of Blue Bottle’s Los Angeles locations, on Fairfax Ave. in West Hollywood.
“We are now serving oat milk as the default option in your coffee drinks because many of you prefer it and it steams into a beautiful, shiny micro-foam. Plus, oat milk creates fewer greenhouse gas emissions than dairy.”
A rep for Blue Bottle wouldn’t share any information about the experiment, where it sourced its environmental assertion, or whether the company plans to introduce this change across its entire footprint, now around 100 stores globally. But a quick check of the company’s iPhone app menus reveals that one of its San Francisco locations, in the Jackson Square neighborhood, is also now oat-by-default.
This is a bold step! And it’s a good experiment as the broad “plant-based” trend continues to grow across food and beverage categories.
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