William Loux: Today people eat more milk than drink

In the United States, since 2016, the main driver of milk demand has been domestic consumption, which over this period has grown from 1.25 million tons in terms of dry matter to 2.5 million tons in 2022.

Export volumes also increased to 1.9 million tons of dry substances.

At the same time, the industry is evolving significantly following the transformation of consumption.

Since 2010, the US dairy industry has been steadily reducing the use of raw materials for the production of drinking milk. At the same time, the use of raw milk for the production of cheese and whey (over 20 years the growth was almost 100%), butter and milk powder (also +100%) and other dry dairy products is growing significantly.

According to William Locks, the decline in drinking milk consumption in the US and around the world is not due to increasing competition from alternative drinks. On the contrary, the pandemic has shown that global consumption of plant-based alternatives declined in 2020-22, mainly due to a reduction in effective demand.

“When a consumer has budget restrictions, he will not experiment with products, but will buy something that will fill him up and be tasty, and alternative drinks do not have these properties,” said William Locks.

The main trend in the development of global milk consumption is associated with the fact that today’s consumer, to a greater extent, does not drink dairy products, but eats them.