Tag: plant-based beverages

Dairy’s Pronounced Advantage Over Plant-Based Alternatives

Posted on by Rachel Ravencraft

“This is a list of ingredients from foods — carrageenan, riboflavin, monosodium glutamate and 20 others that I can’t pronounce.” – HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

This column isn’t here to call out specific food ingredients — carrageenan, for example, has made many an ice cream pint hold together well, proving the value of the raw seaweed extract. But if the idea is to take a more critical look at food ingredients that sound more like science experiments gone bad than healthy, nutritious products, we might just offer one helpful hint: Take a look at the plant-based “dairy” substitutes section and see what you find.

It takes a lot of substances to turn a slurry of chemicals, emollients, emulsifiers, additives and colorings — plus few almonds, oats, etc. — into something that looks like a dairy product. Things like, “mixed tocopherols.” Or “gellan gum,” (which, admittedly, is used in ice cream if you want it to stay stable when placed in flaming alcohol). Or “calcium disodium edta,” (which is also good at treating lead poisoning), among others.

Again, not casting aspersions on anything, just noting that your grandmother probably didn’t talk much about these ingredients over Thanksgiving dinner. Meanwhile, milk is made of… milk, with some vitamin fortification that dates back nearly a century. Cheese is made of… milk, with some additives that follow processes developed over generations. And other dairy products are made of… milk, with whatever else helps keep it safe and stable for consumers who are, in the end, experiencing the same nutrition and wholeness their forebears would have recognized in earlier, less pronunciation-challenged times.

This revelation isn’t anything new: In fact, Dairy Defined did a whole quiz on this theme in 2022 that’s still fun to complete. But it bears repeating as food policy gets a new look. Plant-based products or products derived from the fermentation of a fungus that are engineered to superficially resemble dairy are, by definition, imitations or (poor) substitutes of something that was already out there, already serving a public that understood what it did and what was in it. But in this case, the imposters want to call their product the same thing as the real thing, implying equivalencies in nutrition that just aren’t there and creating confusion in the marketplace.

And that needs to stop.

The last three FDA commissioners, serving both Republicans and Democrats, all recognized the problem — all that’s left is action. Regardless of one’s feelings about specific ingredients or the values they bring to specific foods, being transparent about what something is and what it isn’t, is an important principle from which to build.

Truth in labeling. Not hard to say. And long past time to do.

Say It Loud, Say It Clear: The Plant-Based Beverage Bust is Here

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

It was the fundamental fallacy that launched a thousand news articles: Dairy was dying as consumers were switching to plant-based beverages. That was always a lie — but at least from a certain angle, it could be stretched into something that at least somewhat looked it like could be true. After all, U.S. fluid milk consumption (though not dairy overall, a fact that was conveniently ignored) has declined, and plant-based beverage sales were rising.

But now even that distortion is no longer true. Retail sales volume of plant-based beverages year-over-year have been negative since February, continuing a trend of flat-to-declining volume that dates to mid-2021. This is no longer a blip – it’s a reality, an inconvenient truth that we hope may finally put the original lie to rest.

Declining sales are only some of the woes Team Plant-Based is facing. While eating your fruits and veggies remains good advice – and always will be – that doesn’t mean that ditching dairy nutrients, or animal protein and nutrition in general, is a good idea. The environmental claims of alternatives can be wildly overstated. The nutrition benefits often remain doubtful. And once the novelty wears off, imitator inferiority is left to shine through.

Maybe that’s why Oatly’s share price has declined more than 80 percent since going public last year. Maybe that’s why Beyond Meat is struggling, and the CEO of Maple Leaf Foods said the alts market is unlikely to pan out as originally thought.

And maybe it’s another reason why the Food and Drug Administration shouldn’t reward bad-faith arguments from desperate plant-based promoters that consumer acceptance of their heavily processed, sweetened water as “milk” is inevitable, and they should be rewarded for insisting on misusing a term they have no right to use under existing federal regulation.

If nothing else, perhaps declining sales would inject some welcome humility into marketing claims. Of course, we live in the real world, making that outcome, however desirable, highly doubtful.

But at the very least, the news of declining plant-based beverage sales should be reported just as forcefully as the distortion that was used to malign an entire industry. After being told for years that plant-based beverages were the wave of the future, the public would be well-served to know that the hype was a mirage.

Shrinking Plant-Based Beverage Sales? Hmmm…

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Maybe it’s the bad taste they leave. Maybe it’s P.T. Barnum’s adage about how often you can fool people, proving itself again. Or maybe people simply are finally seeing through the marketing spin. We’ll leave the speculation to others.

But the fact is this: Plant-based beverage sales are declining. That’s the data. You hadn’t heard that? You mean that plant-based marketers and their media allies who have long touted that fake milks would lead to the “death of dairy” aren’t telling you that the novelty appears gone and that predictions of Almond Ascendance have come to naught? Sorry about that, perhaps they should have told you sooner. But the markets know, and now you do too, because here it is:

Most Milk Alternative Segments are Losing Volume in 2022

Source: IRI/DMI custom milk database; Total U.S. multi-outlets + c-stores. Volume for 2022, through May 22.

It’s been true for more than a year now. Almonds – down. Soy – down. Coconuts, rice, and “other” – down. And what’s up? Oats, pea, and horchata (which, it should be noted, is sometimes made with actual milk). But those beverages aren’t enough to stave off the widespread sector decline that’s led by almonds, which is ¾ of the category. And those pockets of isolated growth come at the expense of other plant-based beverages, cannibalizing the sector instead of growing it.

So as the FDA contemplates guidance on labeling, and proven mis-informers try to argue that their place in the market is fore-ordained – and everyone else should just go along with their blatant mislabeling – remember: Real milk is the superior product – in nutrition, taste, functionality and naturalness – and  the highly processed plant-based food propagandists know it. Maybe that’s why you haven’t been hearing much lately about how plant-based beverages are on the rise at dairy’s expense. Because they aren’t rising at dairy’s expense. In fact, they’re not even on the rise.

FDA Commissioners Agree: Nutrition’s a Problem for Plant-Based Faux Dairy

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

It’s easy to become numb to the over-polished signaling that often passes as discourse in Washington, but sometimes reading things closely reveals interesting nuggets that show how an official is weighing a decision or perceiving an issue.

Example: an exchange between FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin at a recent Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee hearing. Baldwin chairs the Senate subcommittee that sets spending levels at FDA — the sort of thing that would make an FDA commissioner pay attention. And when she asked him for his thoughts on how plant-based beverages that masquerade as dairy products should be labeled, he noted that when people think about dairy vs. plant-based beverages, they “are not very equipped to deal with what’s the nutritional value” of the products.

In other words, confusion over the nutritional values of dairy versus plant-based beverages is real.

This isn’t the first time an FDA commissioner has acknowledged the problem of nutritional confusion, which has gained attention well beyond the dairy farmers who create high-quality nutrition every day. From the American Academy of Pediatrics to the School Nutrition Association and others, concerns over the public-health impacts of consumers substituting dairy with nutritionally inferior plant-based products are widespread and well-known.

That’s why Califf’s predecessor, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said in his confirmation hearing that “clear, transparent, and understandable labeling for the American people” was necessary “so that they can make the appropriate decisions for their health and for their nutrition.” That’s why Hahn’s predecessor, Dr. Scott Gottlieb, expressed concern that consumers were being “misled” by plant-based beverages and asked whether consumers “who are using plant-based milk products by seeing the word ‘milk’ imputing a certain nutritional value into that beverage that they’re not deriving?”

And that’s why Gottlieb’s predecessor, who was … wait. Gottlieb’s predecessor was Califf. But you get the picture.

The problem of nutritional confusion, also borne out by consumer surveys, isn’t even controversial at FDA, at least not among its political leadership. The only thing that’s been controversial, apparently, is FDA staff doing something to address the problem. But hope springs eternal, as well as opportunities for action. With long-promised guidance on dairy terms and plant-based beverages due this summer, federal policy has a chance to align with the words of its top officials, by finally creating the labeling integrity consumers deserve.

Doing the wrong thing – essentially preserving the Wild West status quo of plant-based peddlers flouting the FDA’s own rules – will mean little, as federal courts have ruled that guidance policy pronouncements can’t replace regulation, and at the root of current regulation is FDA’s own standard of identity, which clearly identifies milk (the building block of all dairy products) as an animal product.

But doing the right thing – advocating for consumers, promoting transparency in labeling and reinforcing the nutritional importance of those standards – would help restore FDA’s credibility as a consumer advocate and its reputation for public health leadership. And let’s face it, FDA isn’t having the easiest time these days.

The path is clear. The door is open. All FDA needs to do is walk through it and fix what its leaders already know is a problem. And we know they know it. Because they’ve said it themselves.

Plant-Based = Higher Cost, Lower Quality. Be Sure to Tell Your Barista

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

Vegan activists like to hand-wring from time to time about surcharges to add their favorite plant-based beverage to their coffee drinks, citing all sorts of reasons behind the alleged injustice. Here’s a simpler explanation: Plant-based additives cost more because … they cost more.

Higher costs and lower quality are hallmarks of the “innovation” behind the proliferation of non-dairy products that trade on dairy terms in an attempt to win consumer favor. The lower nutritional content of plant-based beverages is well-established, with some almond brands having one-eighth the protein of dairy and none of them having the unique blend of 13 essential nutrients that set dairy apart. But here’s a quick refresher on the cost side of the equation:

This is year-end data of the cost of a gallon of milk (all varieties) compared to alternatives, year-end 2021. Now you can see why marketers are so enthusiastic about selling highly processed oat water.

Here’s a comparison for yogurt. Not a surprise, when you look at the ingredients label of a pint of yogurt versus a plant-based alternative.

And here’s the one product in which dairy doesn’t win on price, though an asterisk should be involved. Admittedly, a pound of “Imitation Cheese” is more pocketbook-friendly than true, FDA-standard-of-identity compliant cheese – a fact that undoubtedly delights “cheese-type product” lovers everywhere.

But it’s worth noting that even imitation cheese usually contains some dairy – just not in a way that meets cheese standards of identity. Vegan varieties, on the other hand, don’t just function terribly – they cost more than twice as much as real cheese and almost four times as much as the cheaper imitations.

Why does this matter? Because in their long-running efforts to disparage dairy, opponents sometimes use bad-faith arguments to call out companies that are acting rationally when what they really need to do is a little math. Complicated and often expensive ingredients, far-flung supply chains, and high advertising costs all feed into the more-expensive structure of plant-based alternatives (and let’s not even get into profit margins).

The point is, if you’re ever in line for a latte and someone in front of you complains about paying more for an almond addition, you can always point out that their choice may cost more money because … it costs more money. Then, add some whole milk to your beverage, for emphasis. It will bring a smile to your day – and information to someone else’s.

Dairy Defined: Tough Times Arrive in Fake-Food Land

Posted on by Theresa Sweeney

The hype couldn’t last forever.

No matter how many celebrity funders are brought on board or “next best thing” pitches are made to launch a product, eventually, over-the-top marketing comes back to bite, and that’s what’s been happening in the world of fake food. Here are a couple recent examples.

Oatly, the darling of the plant-based beverage set, lost one-fifth of its trading value in one day last month after warning it wouldn’t meet revenue expectations. As is the fashion of the day, Oatly blamed the pandemic and supply chains, but the simple truth is, consumer demand isn’t what it was earlier hyped up to be. Third-quarter sales in the Americas, expected at 40 million liters a month, fell short by 3 million.

The company is facing quality control issues as well, with a recall in its native Sweden for potential loose metal in its products. Of all the ingredients seen in plant-based beverages, “loose metal” would be among the least desired – and that’s saying a lot. Oatly’s trajectory toward making oats-and-chemicals America’s drink of choice is falling like a lead balloon – evidence of that via a battered share price, which has kept falling since the bad news was revealed, is a welcome sign of marketplace sanity.

Beyond Meat is another case study in facts can complicate an all-too-perfect narrative. Last month the company had to dramatically lower its expectations for revenue growth, using the pandemic as a cover for a consumer market that’s fizzled much faster than anticipated. Share prices fell accordingly, and like Oatly’s, they keep heading down. Beyond Meat isn’t in the fake dairy business (though it’s made rumbles), but it’s all the same story in animal agriculture, with so-called “innovators” making a short-term splash, then fading with their ad campaigns.

None of this, to be sure, means these companies are going to disappear. Overpriced, flavored plant water has been around for four decades, and while we still wonder why anyone thought they could improve upon the venerable Boca Burger, Beyond Meat has carved its niche. Consumers want variety, and consumer attraction to alternative products is something P.T. Barnum would have found completely understandable generations ago. Though we regret their effects on public health and the environment, fake foods are likely to proliferate even further, as test tubes and fermentation labs bring new imitators that will employ the same sales tricks as their plant-based predecessors. The imposters, it’s safe to say, are here to stay.

What doesn’t need to stay are lax labeling standards and consumer misinformation. A market functions better when it’s transparent – that’s true at a local supermarket as much as it is on Wall Street. This principle is becoming even more important in dairy as where-your-food-comes-from questions become even more crucial to consumer trust and honest marketing.

Over time, promotional flim-flam gets found out, and investors and the public learn that The Next Big Thing isn’t what it was cracked up to be. But the process would move more quickly – and less painfully – if consumers held a clearer understanding of true food “innovation” and better tools for identifying what a food is and what it isn’t. The sooner the puff-up-and-bust cycle is recognized, the more consumer dollars will be better directed toward more nourishing products – the ones that will survive the ups-and-downs of food fads and cash grabs.