I understand that Starbucks has gone to private label without a certification on some products. On the Kosherstarbucks website these appear under KLO. I was wondering - did the KLO find out that the only thing that changed was the packaging or did they examine the new facilities and find everything to be OK?
Thanks!
Dov
This is an important question and I’ll take this opportunity to shed some light on how this stuff works.
The short answer is that I am personally in direct contact with Starbucks about their products and ingredients. I am in direct contact with the Star-K with regards to what their organization approves or doesn’t approve. Everything on the kosherstarbucks.com website is accurate and updated constantly.
So if you’re asking whether these products listed as certified on the website are indeed kosher or not, I can tell you they are. All the products listed as kosher contain only kosher ingredients.
But if you’re asking whether someone went down to a manufacturing facility before approving some products, I’d like to ask you what would need to be examined at the facility? Did you know that kashrus organizations dont inspect every facility? They all rely on the FDA and the many laws that require the manufactures to be compliant and disclose their ingredients?
The Star-K does not like how many Starbucks stores clean their utensils which is why they ran a pilot program with Starbucks to change the way they handle the cleaning process at local Starbucks cafes. This program eventually ended a few months ago. Did you notice how the Star-K approved many Starbucks products and still approve many without having their certification listed? The Star-K does not inspect each Starbucks cafe. Do you see where I’m going with this.
LKO and many others do not share the same concerns about the cleaning process at Starbucks cafes and therefore approve many more Starbucks products.
I had a friend who used to drive me crazy all day about how I’m not eating kosher because I just read ingredients… One day this friend called me to ask forgiveness. He said he started working for the OU kashrus organization and his job was to inspect food manufacturing facilities all over the USA. He told me that he’s embarrassed about every concern he raised about why reading ingredients cant be good because his ignorance now became very apparent to him. He said kashrus organization all rely on the FDA and the laws. They pop into facilities once in a while to say hi. No organization is sitting there everyday ensuring that every batch only consists of the ingredients that are listed.
The pros to having a certification stamped on a product is that now you don’t need to read the ingredients and research further. You can simply rely on the certification that they did their job. But this by no way means you must have a certification on such products for it to be kosher.
Kashrus certification is a big business with people making millions of dollars. Some will tell you whatever they have to so that you believe you must have a certification. This is their livelihood.
This is an over simplification of the topic and the many facets involved. We barely scratched the surface of what every concern may be and what the answer is. But this is enough for this post to give some perspective.
Enjoy your coffee! 
It begs the question why many argue against checking ingredients to ascertain the kashrus of a particular product. BUT they will drink cholov stam milk. It’s the same yesod is it not?
In his famous teshuva about regular (not specially-supervised) milk – what we call “cholov stam”, Reb Moshe Feinstein zt“l rules that such milk is permissible, as governmental inspection of dairies serves as verification that milk from non-kosher animals is not present; since governmental inspection establishes the absence of milk from non-kosher animals as a known fact, the rule of Annan Sahadei – that we are all virtual witnesses to the fact – pertains, and it is as if there is actual visual supervision (by Klal Yisroel) of the milk in domestic dairies. (Igros Moshe YD 1:47)
Quick question regarding Starbucks. I have been using the LKO for Starbucks for a while now, but I felt a little uncomfortable as of recently. I usually only order an Ice Blended Frappacino, but I was cautioned by someone that maybe the creamer isn’t kosher.
What questions should I ask when ordering an Ice Blended Drink? What ingredients may not be kosher at every Starbucks establishment?
LKO is run and operated by one of our moderators @ytesler under the guidance of Rav Abadi.
To your specific question, the only concern we found with starbucks drinks thus far are those that contain fresh or frozen fruit like strawberries and blueberries which may have bug problems. And some may contain wine that may be an issue as well. You can do a simple search on kosherstarbucks.com and you’ll see right away which drinks are problematic.