One of the perks of working at Justia is that our office is just a few doors down from a Starbucks. Chances are on any given day you’ll find a steady stream of Justians popping over at some point to re-fuel on caffeine and load up on something to eat. Imagine how surprised a group of us were last week then to see that the coffee chain now posts the calorie content of their drinks and food – uh oh – we’d been busted! While I fretted over the 400+ calorie scones, Courtney and Ken noticed the high counts of some of their favorite drinks and all three of us wondered what was going on. Is Starbucks suddenly concerned about our health or, more likely, is there some new law we didn’t know about that now makes it mandatory to list this nutritional information.
Meet California Health and Safety Code Sec. 114094 – California’s new menu labeling law! Turns out this law has been on the books since 2008, but given that establishments covered under its provisions had until December 31, 2010 to make calorie counts and other nutritional information available to customers, none of us were aware of it.
