From dairy into plant-based

Further new insights from Dairy Farmers of Wisconsin chart the growth of plant-based products in the United States.

93% of US households still buy dairy milk and 45% now buy non-dairy alternatives, which have grown to 8.8% of retail sales.

Plant-based cheese alternatives are reported to have grown 400% over the past 5 years, but have a much lower market share – 7.7 million lbs in 2018 compared with 12,000 million lbs for dairy.

A Wisconsin representative observed : “The non-dairy is a tiny amount but we cannot ignore it.”

The Financial Times was more blunt on 11 January in commenting on Borden Dairy filing for bankruptcy protection not long after Dean Foods – “Both failed to spot an entrenched trend and blithely carried on business as usual.”