Thirsty Thoughts: Milk Substitutes

CATEGORY ANALYSIS

Nov 1st 2011, 08:07

Milk substitutes cover milk powders (full cream, skim and blends) as well as powdered creamers. BMI quantifies this market annually and has a wealth of volume, value and trend information on these categories.

Powdered creamers up, milk powders down

• The milk substitutes market is dominated by powdered creamers which make up three quarters of the volume.

• The milk powders category is very volatile with an overall volume decline of 3.8% in the base year, after a decline of 10.3% in 2009. Much of the decline in 2009 was a result of milk shortages in the previous year, leaving little milk available for dehydration. Milk supply improved in both 2009 and 2010 but much of the volumes were utilised to replenish cheese supplies. The milk powder market has lost 3.3% of its volume per year over the last decade.

• The powdered creamer market has seen fairly consistent but limited volume growth over the past few years. Given the local and international consumer trend to greater awareness of food ingredients and labelling, the category has come under increasing pressure. The consumer move to consumption of low fat, natural ingredients is completely incongruent with the high fat content and perceived synthetic nature of powdered creamers. While the creamers offer a convenience benefit, this might not outweigh the drive to greater health and wellness, and thus the category may face volume erosion in the long term.


Read more about the performance of powdered creamers and milk powders in our Annual Market Quantification (September 2011) presented by BMI. Click here for more information on BMI Research