The request for authorization for this class action was filed on December 30, 2024 at the Montreal courthouse and targets Tim Hortons, Starbucks and Second Cup for the “extra” fees that these banners request for the addition of non-dairy products. to their different drinks.
Second Cup charges $0.80 extra for adding a dairy substitute to its drinks. In the case of Starbucks, the company added the same fees, but no longer does so since November 7, 2024.
For its part, Tim Hortons added an additional $0.50 to the bill for the addition of dairy substitutes. However, it has removed these costs from its menu since filing the request for authorization for the class action.
According to the class action, which must be authorized by a judge of the Superior Court of Quebec, these fees are “disproportionate, exploitative, unacceptable and abusive, and have no relation to the underlying cost of providing substitutes not dairy.”
“If they put 200 milliliters of milk in a latte, and instead of milk they put a substitute that costs them less, while the milk is still in their fridge, that’s theft! Because they are charging the butter and the money, it is an unjustified double burden,” maintains the lawyer who oversees the collective action, Joey Zukran, of the law firm LPC Avocats.
According to the costs presented in documents filed at the courthouse, dairy alternatives (soy, almond, oats and coconut) are sold between $0.21 and $0.23 per 100 milliliters, while milk is displayed at $0.23 for 100 ml.
“A report which was carried out by Sylvain Charlebois, professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, concludes exhaustively that the price of substitutes for dairy products is less expensive than dairy products in Quebec,” underlines Mr. Zukran.
The figures of Journal of the Canadian Association of Gastroenterology from the University of Oxford maintain that 44% of Canadians are lactose intolerant, highlights the collective action.
In addition, according to class action estimates, approximately 5% of the Canadian population follows a vegan diet.
The class action concerns “all consumers in Canada who, since December 30, 2021, have been charged for a non-dairy substitute when purchasing a Second Cup beverage” and at Tim Hortons.
For consumers who paid extra for dairy alternatives at Starbucks, the transaction must have occurred between “December 30, 2021 and November 7, 2024.”
While Tim Hortons boasts of selling more than “five million cups of coffee every day”, 44% of the population cannot tolerate dairy products, and approximately 50% of intolerant people take their coffee black, the action collective claims that the company sold 1.1 million cups of coffee per day with “disproportionate costs”.
These “abusive fees” would represent additional profits of $550,000 per day, which corresponds to additional margins of $602,250,000 per year for Tim Hortons.
At Second Cup, adding $0.80 to the bill for a medium matcha latte represents an increase of 13.33% compared to the price with a dairy product, which is $6.
On November 7, Starbucks announced “big news about dairy substitutes”: their customers in the United States and Canada will no longer “have to pay extra to personalize their drink with a dairy substitute.”
The class action requests compensatory reimbursements for excess sums, the exact amounts of which will be determined by the Superior Court if the action is accepted.
