The True Price of your morning shot of cafeïne

The cost price of a cappuccino with oat milk is is estimated to be 0.09% higher then the current cost price of a cappuccino with cow milk (True Price, 2021). So it seems your cow milk cappuccino is cheaper. However, true price calculations show that in fact the true price for a cappuccino with oat milk is 29% lower than the true price of a cappuccino with cow milk!

The breakdown of both cappuccino's shows the True Price. The true price is the market price of a product including social and environmental costs that are currently not being paid for. For the cappuccino's this means (unaccounted) costs for Poverty (living wage), Child labour, Material Use, Water Pollution, Air Pollution, Land Use and the Contribution to Climate Change caused by the production, transport and preparation of one cappuccino. These so called 'externalities' are currently not included in your cappuccino price. When taking these externalities into account, the cost price of a cappuccino with oat milk increases with 20%, while the cost price of a cappuccino with cow milk increases with a staggering 47%. 

Curious about the breakdown of externalities of both cappuccino's? 

True Pricing is an effective instrument to make social and environmental damage in the value chain visible. True Price Foundation shows the true price of products, and therewith enables consumers, businesses and governments to make better decisions based on transparency. 

Consumers can choose to buy the product causing less damage or can choose to pay the true price. Businesses can look into ways to decrease the external costs by paying a fair living wage, produce more environmentally friendly, etc. Governments can develop policy demanding true price transparency, inclusion of external costs in the market prices, which will automatically make healthy food more affordable than unhealthy food, or government can favor healthy food over unhealthy food through VAT or other tax benefits. 

Would you be willing to pay 0,74 Euro more for your cappuccino with cow milk? in order to prevent or mitigate environmental, social or health damage?

Please respond, or share your thoughts, in the comment section below.