Dairy and Dairy Alternative Beverage Trends in the U.S., 4th Edition

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Dairy and Dairy Alternative Beverage Trends in the U.S., 4th Edition

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Per capita consumption of fluid milk beverages decreased by close to 22% from 2000 to 2016. Regarding dairy industry trends throughout the same period, consumption of non-dairy plant-based milk alternatives has increased by triple digits. The decrease in dairy milk consumption can be interpreted as each consumer going from 10 glasses of milk each week to eight glasses per week, not much on an individual level but enormous when viewed in terms of the whole population on an annual basis. Even so, milk is still being consumed in over 90% of the households in the U.S. No doubt many other products would like to be able to make that claim.

Dairy Alternatives Gaining Popularity

The milk industry has reacted by challenging the very notion that the plant-based beverages can even be called milks. The National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) has taken the lead on encouraging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) to enforce its own food standard for milk which would exclude plant-based products from being referred to as milk. Federal courts have ruled against the efforts to stop plant-based dairy alternatives from being called milk since any reasonable consumer understands that there is no dairy element in plant-based milks and is, indeed, purchasing them for that reason. The Plant Based Foods Association (PBFA), a trade association founded in 2016 and representing 75 of the nation’s leading plant-based food companies, attributes the lack of action on the part of the FDA as an implicit endorsement of the position that labels such as soymilk do not generate confusion among consumers.