Are they getting desperate?

[rogerjolly]

In the UK the dairy industry is in quite a tizz because of the competition from plant milks. In an attempt to counteract the influence of Veganuary they created Februdairy. Publications such as Farmer’s Weekly adopted full throttle support but the mainstream media largely ignored it. Februdairy has been quite a flop unlike the Veganuary campaign which has gone global.

It is not difficult to see why. The media and the general public obviously showed much more interest in ideas about premature animal deaths and dangers to the environment caused by belching and farting than in any alleged health benefits of drinking cow’s milk.

Sales of plant milks have also soared because of the coronavirus. They are much more long life than animal milk and that means fewer shopping trips. Let us hope that the change is consolidated. Even if the reason for this change is not vegan we should celebrate the fact that every litre of plant milk bought results in one litre less of cow’s milk bought.

Roger.

 

[Lou]

In America dairy is also in trouble. Some of it is competition from plant milks but the surveys seem to put the biggest problem is with people's breakfast habits. People just don't seem to have the time to sit down and have a bowl of breakfast cereal with milk anymore.
Since schools are closed there are fewer sales of milk there. And my guess is that Happy Meal sales (with milk) are down too.
American Dairy has pushed back in several ways. They still do a lot of advertising. Some of their advertising is anti plant milk, but my own observation is that they are doing less of that. They also have lobbied Nationally and in states to restrict the use of the word "milk" to describe things that don't originate with cows.
One of the things that scares me is that the dairy industry here is using a play out of the corn industries playbook. They have awarded grants and funded research in Universities. Some of these are standard dairy industry research, like "discovering" the health benefits of dairy. Some of it is new propaganda that will find itself into classrooms. But what scares me the most is the search for new products. When Big Corn did this they discovered hundreds of uses for corn. Corn has sneaked into lots of different products.
I'm afraid that they will do the same with dairy. What if they find the dairy equivalent to HFCS. Or ethanol.
Its already hard to find a bakery item that doesn't include butter, or milk, or whey (not to mention egg). I don't relish the day I have to search the ingredients for New dairy-based ingredients.