Post Punk Kitchen Forum

coffee once cost me $24 at starbucks in town because i didn't pay the meter and i came out to a ticket. most expensive coffee ever.

haha. glad he didn't die from that!

Heh heh. I am sad to see no Frappiwhip™ included though.

The person would go to Starbucks twice per day (sometimes more) and get a drink and a snack.

I think it's fine to charge extra for soy milk or other more expensive alternatives. Soy milk costs about twice as much as dairy. I'd rather the company pass the extra cost on to me than decide not to carry it because of the expense. (My morning coffee cost $1.76 and came with free soy creamer and stevia. I am spoiled.)

My guess? 2 $4 lattes, a $7 sandwich, and a $2 pastry. Why, I can't imagine. There must be 13756633662 better places to go for lunch.

I think my biggest SB day was around $25-30. I was working on my Structural Geology final. We were allowed to leave for breaks, but had to finish it that day. It took me something like 13 hours and was one of the worst experiences ever. At the end, I think I collapsed into a puddle of over-caffeinated hysterics, and then proceeded to turn green and feel ill at the sight of a SB sign for the next 6 months.

On alternate Fridays, when my commute will be up to 4 hours home, I've sometimes stopped for a tea or another latte, but those times are rare. I save up the freebies for those times. But I figure that if I must sit on 95 for 4+ hours, anything that keeps me happy and sane is worth it. I include my Audible.com subscription in that.

I hope to one day be described as "like Jillian Michaels with a touch of Chuck Norris."

I'm in the same boat with b.vicious. The day I saw the email was my anniversary. Husband is still in Brasil, and we're still waiting for a visa interview. I was at the airport, and my flight was delayed. Also, I've been having a minor (though painful) health issue. So it really felt good to fire off a bunch of tweets whining about soy milk.

You get half price coffee and fresh cinnamon rolls at Capital City this Saturday. You are rollin' in the good stuff.

OMG! CAPITAL CITY CINNAMON ROLLS!! I want to be you!

Soy milk is often a high mark up item though.

According to this: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile ... RDC5096547
the average price for milk is 3.67/gal

For soy, the retail prices are often around $8/gallon, but it is always on sale somewhere. It is easy to find quarts for .99-1.50. At Costco, Kirkland branded organic vanilla Silk is less than $12 for 12 quarts (3 gallons). For reference, I live on the east coast, in a fairly high COL area. In my college town, when I didn't have Costco access, I just bought whichever brand was .99. Kroger always had something. Retail milk doesn't ever get marked down like that until its a day or two away from the expiry.

Obviously, I have no idea how this converts to wholesale, but there is also the fact that the milk is highly perishable and the soy is not. That fact has to help leverage purchasing decisions. Soy purchases can be managed on a corporate level, like coffee, syrups, cups, etc. Milk has to be purchased and delivered on a regional level. It has to be kept refrigerated which takes a lot of space and isn't cheap. Soy can piled up in the store room next to extra straws and napkins. Totally different logistics.

Is it more expensive? Probably. But for a mega corporation, I doubt the difference is all that significant, especially when the drinks that use the most soy are also the drinks with the highest markup. This is a case of seizing the opportunity to upcharge, not just recoup extra expense.

Good luck with the visa interview.

Yes, inconsequential whining saves the sanity to be able to sort through the real stuff. This is also why I just spent 20 minutes choosing a nail polish color for tomorrow. I can't do anything about the Real Problems until October, so anything beats having the scenarios running through my head like a car crash newsreel.

This may no longer be true but McDonald's used to make big profit on their drinks. The cost of syrup was super cheap. They didn't mark up the drink just a certain percent to cover the cost of the drink. They marked them up a lot and had more profit margin on them than on, say, a burger. The cost of soy doesn't necessarily matter. A company is going to mark up the cost where they can. A whole slew of factors would go into it.
Also, S.Bux has always charged more for soy. This isn't a new policy. This is just the end of the corporate sponsored loophole for some people to get out of paying for it. And in return, other perks have been added to these S. Bux cards so they're still giving stuff away or giving cheaper options. And if they are including, say, a sandwich in their things you can get free or cheaper, that probably has a bigger effect on a larger percentage of the customer base than the free or cheap soy option. Just because person A doesn't want a sandwich doesn't mean that Persons B-ZZZZ aren't excited that the stupid soy is no longer free and they can get Frappiwhippi™ sandwiches as some sort of perk system.

I want a Frappiwhippi™ sandwich with KAPOP instead of stupid soy. Do you deliver?

I don't understand S. Bux language! And even if I did y'all know just how much I love to make up words. And if I started My Little Vegan Coffee Stand That Could across the street from an S. Bux you know people would flock to me for just the word FrappiWhippi™. It's a 23 cent teabag from the Grocery Outlet but it's all in the name. $6.

How much is a soy Frappiwhippi™ going to cost me now?

Obviously, companies can do whatever they want; making money is their raison d'être. I just don't buy the whole "losing money" thing with soy.

I didn't start buying anything on a regular basis until they stopped charging cold holders for soy. Then it was only .30. Closing this "loophole" is equivalent to increasing prices by 25% for an obviously sizable number of customers. That would spark a bit of outrage for any business. At least for me, I never saw the soy and syrup as free since I'd not had been buying the drinks anyway if they had been over $4.

I used to buy a certain expensive nail polish top coat, then they raised that price 25%, so I stopped buying it as it was definitely moved out of my budget. I used to buy Molly's food from the local shop that was $8 more each month, but they raised prices and PetSmart didn't. I can't pay $18 extra each month, so I buy it from PetSmart. Plus, nobody else does either, so local shop now only has old food with lousy expiry.

When we had a business, we couldn't go above certain price thresholds without losing money. People will line up at a parrot show to pay $12-15 for a mug, but at $16 and a more expensive printing process, we could sell maybe 20. When our costs went up, we actually couldn't pass them along and still make money. We had to suck it up on the mugs and make it up elsewhere (we made a matching magnet for $2 that customers could add. Many did, so we recouped that way.)

I'd bet for many people, having a drink price go over $5 will exceed a psychological ceiling, even if they can still afford the drink.

I actually think that how this thing plays out will be an interesting study.

Also, someone start My Little Vegan Coffee Stand That Could. No soy upcharge. All vegan all the time. Franchise and make millions. Panda mermaid logo. Drop shipping metric tonnes of KAPOP right to your door. it is on.

As long as it sells monster shaped pirate cookies. That would be awesome.

The secret is that FrappiWhippi™ is always soy. $6. RAW $9. Gluten Free $7.50. Paleo $12. Making the bucks.

Make those paleo people pay!!

According to Johannsen, Lucy probably ate stuff like easy to reach (ie rotting) fruit. Upcharge for the moldy apples!

The Little Vegan Coffee Stand That Could is gouging the paleo diet! $6 motherforking upcharge and there ain't no bone broth bacon fat in it. Oh no. It's all KAPOP and they will never know. They can toss the metric tonne around just like our ancestors did on the streets of Brooklyn. Our profits go toward some big asparagus steel dinosaurs that will appear and chase them to the Hudson. Onward Little Vegan Coffee Stand That Could!

oh, pandacookie. i wish you were Senior VP in Charge of Marketing and Everything in the Universe.

Moldy Apples are natural! Like god intended. $15.

Look for my kickstart campaign coming soon.