Demand for plant-based milks has skyrocketed in Australia over the past five years as traditional dairy industries attempt to wrestle back momentum. IBISWorld senior industry analyst Matthew Reeves writes.
The increased popularity for alternative milk in recent years has come at the expense of the dairy sector.
The rise of alt-milk has been driven by changing consumers preferences, which are in turn due to a range of factors.
Both alt-milk produers and dairy milk producers have been forced to respond to these changes. The alt-milk producers are continuously changing to take advantage of the opportunties created by the change.
The dairy industry, on the other hand, is acting more defensively to try to retain market share, but is innovating nonetheless. Per captia, dairy milk consumption has been slowly declining in Australia since 2019. This, combined with recent droughts, has put signigcant pressure on dairy farmers.