Tag: plant-based milk

Plant-Based Guidance a ‘First Step’ Toward Labeling Transparency, NMPF Says

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Long-awaited FDA guidance on plant-based beverages that encourages manufacturers of plant-based beverages to disclose their nutrient inferiority and acknowledges the public health concern of nutritional confusion over such beverages was seen as a first step toward labeling transparency by NMPF, even as the proposed guidance’s allowance of such beverages to call themselves milk spurred a vow for further action.

The guidance “falls short of ending the decades-old problem of misleading plant-based labeling using dairy terminology,” Mulhern said in a statement released shortly after FDA’s announcement Feb. 22. “By acknowledging both the utter lack of nutritional standards prevalent in plant-based beverages and the confusion over nutritional value that’s prevailed in the marketplace because of the unlawful use of dairy terms, FDA’s proposed guidance today will provide greater transparency that’s sorely needed for consumers to make informed choices.

“Still, the decision to permit such beverages to continue inappropriately using dairy terminology violates FDA’s own standards of identity, which clearly define dairy terms as animal-based products. We reject the agency’s circular logic that FDA’s past labeling enforcement inaction now justifies labeling such beverages “milk” by designating a common and usual name. Past inaction is poor precedent to justify present and future inaction.”

Integrity in the use of dairy terms has been an NMPF focus for more than four decades. Agency activity stepped up in 2018, after then-FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb pledged a fresh look at the issue. A request for comment generated more than 13,000 responses. Guidance in the aftermath of those comments was promised in 2021 and was initially expected last summer.

Mulhern, in NMPF’s statement, noted that, while accepting nutritional confusion is a key advance for dairy and consumers, without any means of enforcement, the guidance could hold little value, urging Congress to re-introduce and pass the DAIRY PRIDE Act, legislation that would mandate FDA enforcement of its own standards of identity.

“Because FDA’s proposed guidance is meaningless without action, enforcement will be necessary to ensure that this limited progress is reflected on grocery shelves,” he said. “For these reasons, we will continue our work in Congress to pass the DAIRY PRIDE Act, which would direct FDA to enforce its own rules and clarify that dairy terms are for true dairy products, not plant-based imposters.”

NMPF’s Support for DAIRY PRIDE, introduced in the Senate by a bipartisan group of senators on Feb. 28, adds another level of momentum to the effort to create labeling transparency, even as NMPF encourages dairy supporters to comment on the FDA’s guidance, which is here.

Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-WI; James Risch, R-ID; Peter Welch, D-VT; and Susan Collins, R-ME, led the reintroduction of the bill, which would require FDA to increase enforcement of existing dairy standards of identity, updated to respond to FDA’s guidance by essentially nullifying it. House re-introduction is expected in the next few weeks.

“Consumers and dairy producers, along with their allies in the nutrition and health communities, thank Sens. Baldwin, Risch, Welch and Collins for their leadership in this important public-health issue,” Mulhern said in a statement the day of the re-introduction. “We look forward to working with our Senate and House champions to enact the DAIRY PRIDE Act during the 118th Congress.”

While that debate is underway and comments are being accepted by FDA, Mulhern urged dairy farmers and consumers to speak up for labeling transparency – and pledged NMPF’s leadership in the effort.

“Consumers shouldn’t have to make choices in a marketplace that’s less than fully transparent,” he said. “And until the federal government fully lives up to its mission, NMPF will continue to lead the battle for labeling transparency.”

FDA’s proposed guidance is open for public comment here until April 24.

The Plant-based Lie That Needs to Die

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

There it was, #5 on a New York Times list of “10 Nutrition Myths Experts Wish Would Die.”

“Plant Milk is healthier than dairy milk.”

“It’s just not true,” said Kathleen Merrigan, professor of sustainable food systems at Arizona State University and a deputy secretary of agriculture under President Barack Obama, in the article. But indeed, the myth persists, despite how plant-based beverages have much-lower protein, numerous additives of dubious value, and a lack of uniform quality that should give anyone pause.

It’s also not shocking the misinformation continues. Money talks, and the plant-based sector is well-funded, with plenty of media allies and a ready-made base of support in a vegan community that insists a diet that’s impossibly difficult to follow and prone to malnourishment should be adopted by everyone. It also comes down to the names of the products themselves. If (whatever substance of the moment) is put in front of the word “milk,” then a false impression of nutritional equivalence, if not superiority, is easy to create. If that weren’t the intention, the plant-based beverage peddlers wouldn’t be doing it.

The good news is, nutrition experts are seeing through it – hence endorsement of integrity in dairy labeling from the American Academy of Pediatrics and others.  And consumers are seeing through it, which is why we’re seeing data like this, in which after years of gains, the plant-based tide is starting to recede.

But we still have the problem of the federal government — specifically the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — which often lags behind science and citizens.

Until the FDA enforces its own standards of identity for milk by getting dairy terms right – reserving them for the real thing to distinguish them from the nutritionally deficient concoctions that hide behind milk’s health halo – the lie of “healthy” plant-based “milk” is likely to persist. And as we’ve seen, that lie is proving difficult to eradicate.

For the sake of well-informed consumer choice, and better health and nutrition, it’s important that the government do its job to dispel the lie of plant-based beverages masquerading as “milk.” On that list, labeling integrity is #1.

Dairy Wins on Facts in Looming ‘Lab-Based’ Labeling Battle

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The marketers are at it again, breathlessly promoting “innovation” as a storm of startups gather, each hoping to cash out their venture capital before their business models crash and burn. It’s happened in “meat,” it’s happened among some plant-based food manufacturers, and the consumers are always the ones left holding the bag, with nutritional needs that aren’t met and a Wild West government attitude toward food labels that creates confusion over what a food is and isn’t.

That’s why we’re warily watching the rise of so-called lab-based dairy – the dressing up of pre-existing fermentation technology as innovation, all the better to bilk customers with inferior, overpriced goods. To avoid the frustration of the past four decades, in which plant-based imposters have proliferated as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration turns a blind eye to its own rules on dairy terms, it’s ever more important for the agency now to create clear labeling guidelines for such products, making clear distinctions to protect consumer health and safety, and avoid past mistakes.

First, a primer on what companies such as Perfect Day, which advertises itself as providing “Sustainable Animal-Free Dairy and Protein,” provide. Using “precision fermentation” technology, an imitator can duplicate an individual dairy protein – for example, a single whey protein among numerous proteins found in natural whey – and reproduce it at a commercial scale without using its natural source of creation, an animal.

The technology isn’t new: In fact, the dairy industry pioneered it, using fermentation to produce calf rennet for cheesemaking. But through the wonders of marketing and a loose definition of what “dairy” is, startups are creating the impression that they’re using cutting-edge technology to develop a true dairy product. In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth.

Here’s why. In food science, an important principle is this: We don’t know what we don’t know. Appreciation for food’s complexity – how nutrients interact, how much the food-creation process matters – has advanced from the 20th century, when cereal marketers could slap “Fortified With 8 Vitamins and Minerals” and deem sugary breakfast products a healthy food.

Milk isn’t just a single synthesized protein or a simple collection of nutrients. It’s a complex biologic product evolved over millennia, with nutritional and health benefits created via innumerable interactions within an animal that only the arrogant and foolish would claim it can perfectly reproduce. While in a sense, these lab-synthesized products come closer to the mark than plant-based fakes – at least they have overlapping strands of some matching DNA – a single dairy protein is no more “milk” than a steering wheel is a car. These products do not come anywhere near replicating natural dairy.

And, given the necessity of the animal to the process, they never will. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s stated standard of identity for milk as “the lacteal secretion … obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows” isn’t the result of industry lobbying or an outdated conception of dairy. It reflects a solid grounding in scientific reality, one that isn’t changed by a fermentation vat and a misleading marketing pitch.

About those vats. Beyond the simple scientific refutation of synthesized, lab-based products as dairy, it’s important to note that the purported advantages of these products, specifically regarding their sustainability, can be wildly overstated.

It’s true that dairy cows contribute to greenhouse gas emissions, for the same reasons you do — they eat, drink, and use land. But a well-managed, 21st century dairy also fits well into an environmental lifecycle that includes using a cow’s four-chambered stomach to convert plants that are inedible for humans into milk and dairy products we can consume and enjoy, as well as creating byproducts that can displace fossil fuels. That’s why we’re so excited about and confident in our sector’s highly achievable Net Zero Initiative.

Lab-based dairy sustainability is less certain. What’s the electric bill for the industrial bioreactor used to make small product batches of casein into larger ones? What’s the carbon footprint needed for the large-scale reproduction of a single protein, versus the effort used by an animal that can perfectly create every single necessary substance on its own? And what are the prospects of producing at competitive cost and scale in a factory what cows produce naturally and is sold relatively inexpensively? If the benefit exists, where are the studies that verify it? And who funded them?

All of this, and more, argues for extremely clear labeling of technologically primitive dairy-protein replicants sold in the marketplace that, without regulatory intervention, are guaranteed to mislead and confuse consumers more than they benefit them. We’ve seen that in the proliferation of mislabeled plant-based products. A factory-synthesized dairy protein, for example, can still trigger milk allergies. But what choice might a consumer with such allergies, upon seeing an “Animal Free” marketing claim, make? And in the real world – the one where consumers eat food, not DNA sequences – what’s the safest, most honest way to inform them that what they consume is nutritionally doing what dairy naturally does, even when we ourselves don’t necessarily know exactly what’s creating that experience?

Here’s how: By relying on clear labeling guidelines that have existed for decades and are grounded in well-established science and consumer understanding.

In some ways, the looming labeling battle over industrially duplicated “dairy” may seem more difficult than the plant-based challenge. But from another angle, the need for labeling integrity is obvious and the arguments clear. Dairy has been, is today, and always will be, the product of an animal-based production system. It’s what makes it what it is. Despite the attempts to blur these crucial distinctions that are already under way and promise to proliferate, that must always be kept top-of-mind. We certainly will. And we’ll do everything we can to make sure that FDA, members of Congress and consumers do too.

Jim Mulhern

President and CEO, National Milk Producers Federation

FDA’s Proven It Can Do Its Job On Fake Milk – It Can Do It Again

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

With FDA guidance expected on the proper labeling of plant-based milk alternatives sometime this summer, it’s worth noting – even if seemingly for the millionth time – that this isn’t a tough call, no matter what plant-based lobbyists would tell you.

The FDA’s own standards define milk as an animal product. The agency charged with protecting the public health should, you know, protect the public health from well-documented consumer confusion over nutritional content. And if anyone tells you that it’s just too difficult for FDA to do that – that straw-grasping arguments about First Amendment speech protections and the proliferation of plant-based beverages are just too overwhelming for the agency to do its own job – remember this: FDA has already enforced labeling integrity. Multiple times.

For the record: Before it decided that plant-based beverages were just too numerous (or litigious, perhaps?) to do anything about, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration used to stand up to its own mission. On Jan. 23, 1981, FDA warned a soy-product manufacturer that “The statement ‘soybean milk’ has not been sanctioned as an acceptable identity statement for such a mixture as water, soybean, wheat and seaweed by this agency,” adding that there is not “a clear and uniform understanding of what ‘soybean milk’ is in this country.”

The 1980s were a feisty time for fighting food fakes. On Sept. 29, 1983, FDA wrote a research institute in Singapore to say “we have not recognized the term ‘soy milk’ as a common or usual name or appropriately descriptive term for statements of identity or ingredient designations of any food. As a result, we would object to any soy product entering this country that was labeled as ‘soy milk.’” A similar letter to South Korea in 1985 stated, “The names ‘soymilk’ and ‘vegetable milk’ are not acceptable identity statements for these products. The product may be called ‘soy drink’ or ‘soy beverage.’”

Chalk up dairy-label integrity as another reason to be nostalgic for Ronald Reagan. But before you dismiss seemingly ancient agency actions as part of a now-unrelatable era of high inflation, disputes over what’s taught in schools, and tensions with Russia (um, wait a second), note FDA’s letter of June 29, 2011. In that one, the agency told a sports-drink manufacturer that its “Muscle Milk” product line was misleading because its products “do not conform to the standard of identity for milk.”

Fake-milk enforcement isn’t merely a relic of Reagan’s FDA. It was part of President Barack Obama’s as well. But of course, consumers all know that “Muscle Milk” isn’t really made of muscles – right? According to FDA’s own actions, that’s not enough. Milk ain’t muscles, even though it builds them. It also ain’t almonds, or oats, or soy, or …

You get the picture. So why doesn’t FDA? Given the agency’s recent track record, it’s fair to say its years of inaction creates nervousness over what it might do next. Any attempt to justify previous non-enforcement by saying “but we haven’t been enforcing it” is flat-out wrong – the record shows it. And any argument that says “time has established a new usage while we’ve done nothing” isn’t just untrue, it insults the FDA officials who did stand up for integrity.

FDA could use some of that these days. Consumers could use some too. While we’re at it, the whole world could use a big dose of integrity (along with copious quantities of high-nutrition, true dairy products). And it’s not impossible. We’ve seen it before. Maybe someday — maybe soon – we can see it again.

FDA Commissioners Agree: Nutrition’s a Problem for Plant-Based Faux Dairy

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

It’s easy to become numb to the over-polished signaling that often passes as discourse in Washington, but sometimes reading things closely reveals interesting nuggets that show how an official is weighing a decision or perceiving an issue.

Example: an exchange between FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin at a recent Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. Baldwin chairs the Senate subcommittee that sets spending levels at FDA — the sort of thing that would make an FDA commissioner pay attention. And when she asked him for his thoughts on how plant-based beverages that masquerade as dairy products should be labeled, he noted that when people think about dairy vs. plant-based beverages, they “are not very equipped to deal with what’s the nutritional value” of the products.

In other words, confusion over the nutritional values of dairy versus plant-based beverages is real.

This isn’t the first time an FDA commissioner has acknowledged the problem of nutritional confusion, which has gained attention well beyond the dairy farmers who create high-quality nutrition every day. From the American Academy of Pediatrics to the School Nutrition Association and others, concerns over the public-health impacts of consumers substituting dairy with nutritionally inferior plant-based products are widespread and well-known.

That’s why Califf’s predecessor, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said in his confirmation hearing that “clear, transparent, and understandable labeling for the American people” was necessary “so that they can make the appropriate decisions for their health and for their nutrition.” That’s why Hahn’s predecessor, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, expressed concern that consumers were being “misled” by plant-based beverages and asked whether consumers “who are using plant-based milk products by seeing the word ‘milk’ imputing a certain nutritional value into that beverage that they’re not deriving?”

And that’s why Gottlieb’s predecessor, who was … wait. Gottlieb’s predecessor was Califf. But you get the picture.

The problem of nutritional confusion, also borne out by consumer surveys, isn’t even controversial at FDA, at least not among its political leadership. The only thing that’s been controversial, apparently, is FDA staff doing something to address the problem. But hope springs eternal, as well as opportunities for action. With long-promised guidance on dairy terms and plant-based beverages due this summer, federal policy has a chance to align with the words of its top officials, by finally creating the labeling integrity consumers deserve.

Doing the wrong thing – essentially preserving the Wild West status quo of plant-based peddlers flouting the FDA’s own rules – will mean little, as federal courts have ruled that guidance policy pronouncements can’t replace regulation, and at the root of current regulation is FDA’s own standard of identity, which clearly identifies milk (the building block of all dairy products) as an animal product.

But doing the right thing – advocating for consumers, promoting transparency in labeling and reinforcing the nutritional importance of those standards – would help restore FDA’s credibility as a consumer advocate and its reputation for public health leadership. And let’s face it, FDA isn’t having the easiest time these days.

The path is clear. The door is open. All FDA needs to do is walk through it and fix what its leaders already know is a problem. And we know they know it. Because they’ve said it themselves.

All Too Quiet on the Fake-Dairy Front

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The news has been quiet on the fake-dairy front. Too quiet.

To update on the latest from FDA, which regulates food-product labeling: FDA is saying it will offer guidance on the labeling of plant-based milk alternatives by June. But indications of what that may actually mean are sparse, even though the agency’s own course of action – should they choose to follow their own rules — is clear.

A new rule on yogurt labels put into effect in July is a helpful, and hopeful, sign. The rule robustly defends standards of identity that ensure consumers purchase products that meet their expectations. As dairy farmers, and consumers, have always maintained, how a food is made, and where it comes from, matters. FDA’s recognition of that is a big win for labeling integrity, one we’re hoping is reflected in next year’s guidance.

But beyond that, nada from an agency that hasn’t inspired confidence via its 40 years of neglect on this issue. The quiet isn’t just unusual, it appears to be willful. In the past year, we at the National Milk Producers Federation have sent two letters – one last October, and another last month, to the FDA’s ombudsman, the office within the agency that members of FDA-regulated industries go to when they experience problems with the regulatory process.

Other than an acknowledgment of receipt of the first letter, again, nothing. And that’s strange, because, as we note in our second letter, if the FDA uses its guidance next June to do anything other than defend its own standards:

We caution FDA that rewriting an existing rule with guidance would be a violation of the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The APA requires regulatory changes to be made using notice and comment rulemaking which a guidance cannot overrule. In addition, some federal courts are no longer bowing to an agency’s use of enforcement discretion when such discretion is broad and long-term and amounts to a de-facto re-write of existing rules.

And that makes us wonder what FDA is worried about. With food-labeling litigation becoming ever-more sophisticated and time-consuming, the temptation for a federal agency to simply throw up its hands on a hot-button issue would be high. We also know the lack of a new commissioner can slow down decision-making. And it’s not as if the agency isn’t trying to catch up on other pressing matters.

But that’s not serving the interest of the consuming public, which FDA is charged to do. And this issue isn’t a heavy lift – once again, as the FDA states, “Milk is the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows.” That’s the standard. Full stop.

And without that respect for standards – the same respect showed in the yogurt rule – and the courage required to enforce them, a Wild West approach to labeling predominates. And the problem of consumers being misled into incorrect notions of nutritional equivalence by bad-faith labeling – one that’s literally contributed to child malnutrition — only worsens.

We’re hoping to hear back soon.

Yogurt Rule May Aid Consumer Win on Fake Milk – If FDA Follows Through

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

It’s a shame to even have to say this, but it’s 2021, so just to be clear: Logic matters. Consistency matters. That’s why a new FDA rule that defines what is and isn’t yogurt has much broader, and potentially very positive, implications in one of the most contested consumer issues of the day – the proper labeling of milk and dairy products.

Background: FDA last month issued a final rule taking effect today that amends yogurt’s standard of identity – the legal definition of what a food is – by modernizing rules to fit changes in yogurt-making technology. It also revokes the previous individual standards of identity for low-fat yogurt and nonfat yogurt. Industry compliance is expected by Jan. 1, 2024.

The new rule is rooted in a response to a citizen’s petition from the National Yogurt Association filed in February 2000. The slow pace isn’t unusual, unfortunately, and undoubtedly there will be quibbles with some details of the 22-page document. There always are. But FDA’s decision is important: It defends principles that support transparent food labeling and protects consumers. And those principles matter well beyond yogurt, with the FDA promising a review of a much larger issue –  the labeling of plant-based milk alternatives – by next June.

The rule offers a robust defense of standards of identity, which ensure that consumers purchase products that meet their expectations.  As FDA writes, “Any food that purports to be or is represented as yogurt, must conform to the definition standard of identity for yogurt.” So, what’s in yogurt? “Cream, milk, partially skimmed milk, skim milk, and the reconstituted versions of these ingredients may be used alone or in combination as the basic dairy ingredients in yogurt manufacture,” the rule states. And how is yogurt made? “Yogurt is produced by culturing the basic dairy ingredients and any optional dairy ingredients with a characterizing lactic acid-producing bacterial culture.”

In other words: How a food is made, and where it comes from, matters.

The rule also reaffirms the role of nutrition quality in meeting consumer expectations. Discussion of the “nutritional or functional purposes” of ingredients permeates the document, and while the rule allows some flexibility on the need to fortify with Vitamin A in lower-fat yogurts, it restates the basic, crucial role that nutritional value plays in a product’s definition, as evidenced by FDA’s emphasis on the preservation of protein content and nutritional quality in the product’s formulation.

In other words: Whether a food has the nutritional value expected of that food, matters.

So, what could a rule about yogurt mean for the decades-old debate over plant-based imposters? The FDA doesn’t address that issue directly. But it’s clear that non-dairy products that call themselves yogurt don’t fit the identity standard, and a look at nutrition labels shows nothing resembling equivalence between real dairy yogurt and plant-based pretenders.

The basic principles are clear. That makes the implications strong.

If standards of identity matter as much as FDA says it does, then the phrase “the lacteal secretion, practically free from colostrum, obtained by the complete milking of one or more healthy cows” is critical – because that’s the standard of identity for milk, which FDA is pledged to enforce. And if nutritional integrity is as important to a food’s definition as the yogurt rule says it is, then beverages that are wildly deficient in protein and other nutrients compared to milk, shouldn’t call themselves “milk.”

That’s good news for consumers. But whether encouraging restatements of principles translate into action will depend on how important logic and consistency turn out to be.

If they are, all FDA has to do is 1. Follow its logic and 2. Be consistent (and of course, enforce. None of today’s proliferation of imposters would be a problem if only FDA enforced existing standards of identity and labeling regulations). With that, a path forward on fake milk becomes clear, one in which dairy-product integrity is protected and consumers aren’t led to believe that certain products may provide value that they don’t because of their labeling. Just like the National Yogurt Association – whose petition outlasted its own existence — we have a citizen’s petition too, filed in 2019. With the yogurt rule complete, our petition should be answerable in much less than 21 years.

FDA has shown its hand in a rule that will help consumers make informed decisions. Extending the logic and consistency of the new yogurt standard to labeling of products using terms like milk, cheese and butter – and then enforcing them — is long overdue.

The yogurt rule shows that reason can still win out, with standards of identity and nutritional value protected. That matters. A lot.

Dairy Defined: Dairy a Key to Your Plant-Based Diet

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

In diet, as in life, extreme approaches seldom achieve the best outcomes. That’s why vegan diets, which eschew all animal products, so often lead to negative outcomes – it’s an extreme approach to eating, just like other unbalanced diets that stack up too heavily on some nutrients and not others.

So while it could be surprising to some that the Dietary Guidelines for Americans would recommend dairy products as part of a healthy vegetarian eating pattern – as in “What? I should have animal products in my plant-based diet?” – a little examination shows it makes perfect sense. Vegetarian isn’t the same as vegan. And deciding to move toward a diet more heavily weighted toward fruits, nuts and vegetables doesn’t mean a consumer has to travel to the fringe – or miss out on dairy’s many clear benefits. If anything, it may make dairy an even more important part of the nutritional journey.

Here’s why dairy makes sense in a “plant-based” diet.

  • Milk efficiently delivers a lot of nutrients that are more difficult to gain through plant-based sources. Protein, calcium, vitamins A & D – those are just a few of the 13 essential nutrients dairy packages together in an easy-to-access way. Yes, plant-based diets have many of these nutrients, but not all – try getting adequate Vitamin B12 without animal sources. To fill in the gaps that would otherwise require a supplement, a glass of milk goes a long way.
  • This is especially true with proteins. Not all proteins are created equal, and animal-sourced proteins tend to be higher-quality than plant-based ones. Nothing against plants, but animal proteins are just more complete – they contain the full range of amino acids, and plant-based proteins do not. That’s biology, not ideology. Dairy products have protein in abundance, and to most people they taste better too. Just compare a glass of milk with an unsweetened almond-based beverage. The real dairy product will usually have as much as eight times as much protein as the highly processed, lab-concocted, misnamed “milk” that costs twice as much money and tastes like chalk.

But if that doesn’t convince you …

  • Dairy can help consumers consume less. Eat-more-plants-to-save-the-planet gets repeated so often that it’s conventional wisdom in many circles. But the picture’s more complicated than it looks, and not just because dairy is a leader in agricultural sustainability. For example, much of a cow’s nutrition comes from plants that human can’t consume, energy that’s then turned into dairy products that humans can digest. And when someone says, “eat more plants,” not enough attention is paid to the “more,” as in, if you want the nutrition, you need to eat more food. That takes resources from the planet and adds it to your waistline – a phenomenon also known as, “the worst of both worlds.” In the case of proteins, you would need to eat up to 30 percent more of some plant proteins to get the same high-quality protein as a dairy product. And hunting across the grocery aisle for the 13 essential nutrients milk has on its own. That can quickly become costly, time-consuming, and a source of future food waste.

All this makes dairy a smart option for the non-dogmatic plant-based consumer.

Diet is a highly personal choice, and in the 21st century those choices can be based on everything from simply how good food tastes to what economic opportunity that food may provide to what role that food may play in preserving the planet. Dairy meets all those consumer goals. That’s why dairy is recommended for anyone who may possibly benefit from their consumption – and that includes you, plant-based devotees.

Rising Dairy Consumption Providing Comfort in a Challenging Time

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The data is in, and in dairy’s corner of the world, it brings some comfort at a challenging time. Throughout the market ups and downs of the pandemic era, consumers love of dairy products has been a constant, even rising in 2020 from 2019 and once again proving that, despite these challenging times, a glass of milk remains as relevant as ever.

Retail dairy purchases, which jumped at the pandemic’s beginning, have remained elevated throughout the year.

With more meals being prepared at home, dairy has provided comfort in uncomfortable times. Baking went better with butter. Coffee was complemented with real dairy cream or half-and-half. Milk remained essential to family nutrition.

 

Milk Consumption Grew During Pandemic

Milk consumption itself saw gains across categories. Buttermilk use rose with the baking revival, organic and conventional volumes of fluid milk rose, and lactose-free milk saw increases comparable to those of plant-based beverages – which, despite the hype from the fake-milk marketers, is a comparably-sized market to that of lactose-free alone.

What’s beyond compare is just how much more milk sales grew relative to plant-based during the pandemic – nearly $1 billion in growth compared to less than $400 million for plant-based.

Dairy Beats Plant-Based Growth

Data sources for information above: IRI/DMI/MilkPEP/DFW/CMAB custom database for milk and cheese; syndicated database for other products, IRI DMI/MilkPEP/DFW/CMAB custom database, Total US Multi Outlet + Convenience

True, plant-based posted a larger percentage gain during the pandemic – it always does, because its totals build from a smaller sales base. But in sheer sales growth, plant-based beverages aren’t on the same playing field as milk.

Everyone has a lot going on these days, and little of it is easy. But good news is even more appreciated whenever it can be found, and the consumer embrace of the foods that really matter is a part of the “new normal” that shows signs of becoming … normal. It’s showing some staying power – just like the 24/7, 365-days-a-year dairy industry itself. We remain strong, and ready for what’s ahead. The data backs it up. So does the determination.