Dietary Guide

Milk & Dairy Alternatives

Costa offers three plant-based milk options across its drinks range. But swapping to one doesn't automatically make every drink dairy-free — 21 drinks on our menu contain a non-milk dairy ingredient (a sauce, a whipped topping, a powder) that a plant-based milk swap can't remove. We've pulled this list directly from Costa's official Store Allergen Guide, cross-checked item by item — nothing here is guessed.

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The milk options

Plant-Based Milk, By The Numbers

Costa's own allergen data lists exactly three plant-based milk alternatives (all Alpro-branded) — we did not find a fourth, almond-based option in the official guide, despite it being a common assumption.

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Oat

Alpro Plant Alternative – Oat

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Soya

Alpro Plant Alternative – Soya

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Coconut

Alpro Plant Alternative – Coconut

The safety-relevant gap

When A Plant-Based Milk Swap Doesn't Work

⚠️Not every drink can be made dairy-free

Costa's own guidance states: “Some barista-made drinks contain ingredients (e.g. sauces or toppings) that include dairy. This means they cannot be made dairy free, even with a dairy alternative.” We cross-checked every drink on our menu against Costa's allergen table (including all oat/soya/coconut variants) and found 21 drinks where milk shows up no matter which base is used — almost always from a sauce, syrup, whipped topping or powder rather than the milk itself.

18 of these 21 carry Costa's own on-menu warning (the exact wording above, printed next to the item). 3 more — Hot Chocolate, Mocha and Iced Mocha — show the identical pattern in Costa's own data (milk present in every milk variant, including plant-based ones) but aren't given that on-menu warning. We're flagging those explicitly here and on our Vegan Menu page, sourced directly from the same official table, not guessed.

By category

Full List, Category By Category

Coffee

Item Status
Caramel Macchiato Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Maple Hazel Latte Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Mocha Cannot be dairy-free — not flagged by Costa
Spanish Latte Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning

See full Coffee menu →

Other Hot Drinks

Item Status
Hot Chocolate Cannot be dairy-free — not flagged by Costa
Maple Hazel Hot Chocolate Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
White Hot Chocolate Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning

See full Other Hot Drinks menu →

Frappé

Item Status
Chocolate Fudge Frappé Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Chocolate Fudge Frappé with Coffee Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Maple Hazel Frappé Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Salted Caramel Frappé Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Salted Caramel Frappé with Coffee Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning

See full Frappé menu →

Coffee Over Ice

Item Status
Caramel Iced Whipped Latte Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Iced Cappuccino Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Iced Caramel Macchiato Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Iced Flat White Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Iced Mocha Cannot be dairy-free — not flagged by Costa
Maple Hazel Iced Latte Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
Spanish Iced Latte Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning
White Chocolate Iced Whipped Latte Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning

See full Coffee Over Ice menu →

Iced Tea

Item Status
Maple Hazel Iced Matcha Cannot be dairy-free — Costa's warning

See full Iced Tea menu →

A note on accuracy

Where This Data Comes From

This list is built from Costa's own published Store Allergen Guide (27 Aug – 21 Oct 2026 edition), checking each drink's dairy/milk allergen status across every milk variant — standard dairy, oat, soya and coconut. Recipes and suppliers can change between guide editions, so if you have a milk allergy or dairy intolerance, please confirm with in-store staff before ordering, every time.

Allergens & DietaryVegan Menu