Squeezing The Coconuts: A Look At Dairy Alternative Beverages by Packaged Facts

Feb. 27, 2012 - PRLog -- The “big three” dairy alternative beverages—soy milk, rice milk and almond milk—have become increasingly mainstream, such that “dairy alternatives” may eventually give way to a term such as plant milks, or even to a dairy-free descriptor that sheds reference to the king of the dairycase altogether.   Nonetheless, shelf-space competition and consumer substitutions will tend to keep these products in opposition, with battles won and lost based on relative advantages and disadvantages in price, flavor, food sourcing and processing, and product nutrition and fortification.

But there’s also the role of novelty.  Generally speaking, consumers of plant milks are a more adventurous bunch than those who drink cow’s milk. Experian Simmons data show, for example, that 50% of whole milk fans like to try out new food products, compared with 60% of soy milk fans.  Similarly, 21% of whole milk fans describe themselves as quick to try out new nutritional products, compared with 34% of soy milk fans.  (Organic dairy milk consumers are an exception to this general pattern, falling in with the plant milks crowd.)

The need for the new among plant milk consumers has, in turn, helped almond milk steal thunder from soy milk.  According to a Packaged Facts survey conducted for our  Dairy Alternative Beverages (January 2012) report, 40% of soy milk drinkers are drinking more of this product than they were five years ago, a stat worrisome to dairy milk producers.  At the same time, 62% of almond milk drinkers are downing more of this product than they were five years ago, a stat worrisome to soy milk producers.

But not to diversified producer Dean Foods, which is not only the leading U.S. processor and distributor of milk and related dairy products, but the owner of WhiteWave, Silk, and Horizon Organic, among other national dairy and dairy alternative brands.  Sales figures for WhiteWave refrigerated dairy alternatives, as tracked by SymphonyIRI, tell the story of ongoing churn in the plant milks market.  Soy milks continue to account for three-fourths of WhiteWave sales in this segment, but while sales are flat or down for these soy lines, they are booming for Silk Pure Almond (up 66% for the 52 weeks ending January 22, 2012), and surging for the debut year of Silk Pure Coconut, launched in March 2011.  

Simply being new or unexpected doesn’t equate to success in the plant milks market, of course, as is obvious from the modest sales of hazelnut milk or oat milk, which have been on the market for a number of years. A successful launch in the plant milks arena should have a unique and cleverly executed marketing message that emphasizes taste and a compelling nutritional story while also riding the white waters of novelty.  Here is where non-diversified dairy milk producers are at a partial disadvantage.  It’s not that milk producers can’t play the novelty card:   as noted in Freshness: Culinary Trend Mapping Report (February 2012), a joint publication of Packaged Facts and the San Francisco-based CCD Innovation, “regular milk remains a supremely fresh and popular product, now with all kinds of styles and forms bursting from the dairy case—organic milk, all levels of fat, new chuggable flavored milks, raw milk, goat milk, you name it.”   All of those new styles and forms, however, run the risk of eroding the centrality and seeming inevitability of dairy milk—of downgrading dairy milk from king to first among equals in the dairycase.   While plant milks can play the field, dairy milks can’t dance very far without giving up the high ground.

The “Got Milk?” campaign from The California Milk Processor Board holds this high ground with its “real milk comes from real cows” slogan and a website that opens with retro graphic stylings and a “many imitations—still no equal” tossing down of the gauntlet.   Dean Foods division WhiteWave, however, has no qualms about taking on the real thing and going for the jugular.   “Silk Pure Coconut  provides 50% more calcium than dairy milk—yet is completely lactose free,” reads http://www.silkpurecoconut.com/.  A nutritional table shows 2% milk comparing unfavorably with Silk Pure Coconut in calories, calcium, cholesterol, and sugars.  With a “give in to delicious” slogan and a promise of “fresh, creamy taste,” Silk Pure Coconut recommends itself straight up, in your morning coffee, for savory recipes, and for dessert recipes, while Silk’s Facebook page shows Silk being poured into a breakfast cereal bowl and served up with chocolate chip cookies.   At least for its leading U.S. processor and distributor, milk is no sacred cow.

Please visit Packaged Facts’ blog at http://packagedfacts.blogspot.com/.

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David Sprinkle
dsprinkle@marketresearch.com