Starbucks’ MAHA Misstep
For paid subscribers: What Starbucks’ CEO Brian Niccol’s meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says about the company’s embrace of coffee’s wellness trend—and the trend’s darker side.
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Starbucks’ MAHA Misstep
For paid subscribers: What Starbucks’ CEO Brian Niccol’s meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says about the company’s embrace of coffee’s wellness trend—and the trend’s darker side.
4 min read
Last week, Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol met with U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., to discuss “the company’s plans to further MAHA its menu”, according to Kennedy’s post on Twitter.
MAHA stands for “make America healthy again”, and is the name given to Kennedy’s political campaign to supposedly re-orientate the United States’ health policy towards a more clean-living, wellness-inspired approach.
However Kennedy has a long history of pushing conspiracy theories and straight-up lies about a range of subjects from 5G to chemtrails, and a big part of MAHA is its opposition to the food and beverage industry’s political influence.
So why was Niccol meeting with him?
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