美国植物奶零售销量连续三年每年下滑超5%

Catalina Costa had been drinking almond and cashew milk for almost a decade when she took a closer look at the ingredients. Although plant-based milks have long benefited from a vague health halo, the 32-year-old in Chicago says she was surprised to see a long list of additives that she couldn’t pronounce, plus virtually no protein. For the first time in years, she closed the alt-milk grocery case and put classic cow’s milk in her shopping cart instead. “I was trying to eat less processed foods,” she says. “I ended up switching to dairy milk because that’s just one ingredient.”

She’s not the only one. Retail sales by volume of dairy-free milks have fallen by more than 5% each year for three straight years, according to data from market researcher Circana. Almond milk has been among the hardest-hit, but even oat milk, which long reigned as the coolest milk on the block, has seen momentum slow. Meanwhile, dairy-milk retail sales — totaling nearly $18 billion a year in the US — continue chugging along. Similar trends are playing out in the UK and some other European markets.

“People are cutting back from plant-based milk. They’re disappointed with the price, the taste and the heavy processing, and it’s low-protein comparatively to dairy milk,” says Melissa Altobelli, a Circana senior vice president. “That is why dairy is winning.”

Some plant-milk producers are rethinking their strategy. Danone SA, which appointed a new head for US plant milk earlier this year after the chief executive officer said he’d “lost patience” with poor North American sales, just rolled out a suite of high-protein products under its Silk plant-based banner to reignite growth. Others are cutting bait: In the UK, dairy cooperative Arla discontinued its plant-based brand last year; smoothie maker Innocent Drinks had already done the same two years prior.

Although plant-based milks have a long history — almond milk dates to the Middle Ages in Europe and the Middle East, and soy milk was a star ingredient of the 1970s health movement — alternative milks entered the mainstream in force in the 2010s, as more consumers shunned animal products in favor of environmentally friendly and lactose-free options. What started primarily with soy and almond milk quickly expanded into oats, cashew nuts, macadamia nuts, rice, hemp — you name it. By the latter part of the decade, latte fanatics were spending an extra 50¢ to $1 at coffee shops to upgrade their drinks with “barista-quality” plant milks, thanks in part to the popularity of the Sweden-based Oatly. In 2021, Starbucks Corp. added oat milk as a permanent menu item in 15,000 US cafes.

A similar trend was playing out in the protein space, with faux-meat companies like Beyond Meat Inc. and Impossible Foods Inc. winning over households trying to make what they saw as healthier choices. Investors flocked: When Beyond Meat went public in 2019, shares surged 163%. Two years later, Oatly, which had signed on celebrity investors including Oprah Winfrey, Jay-Z and Starbucks founder Howard Schultz, went public with a market value of about $12 billion.

But the consumer winds are shifting again. Today’s households are looking for simpler diets with fewer ingredients. Major food producers like Nestlé SA have scaled back their plant-based selections, while Unilever Plc sold off its fake-meat brand entirely last year. The shift has more recently extended beyond meat alternatives to beverages. Oatly today has a market value below half a billion dollars.

“The return to whole, unprocessed milk is about a desire for control,” says Eve Turow-Paul, executive director of food sustainability group Bite. “When people feel like the world is chaotic, they gravitate towards foods that are simple and easy to understand. And there’s simplicity and comfort in what seems Old World. It’s like ‘no one can trick me.’”

Although alt milks can be made with just a few ingredients — water, a base like oats or almonds and usually a pinch of salt — some varieties include extra sugar or industrial thickeners like carrageenan. Emulsifiers and seed oils are often added to plant milks to “ensure stability of the product, because nobody wants curdled oat milk in their coffee,” says Abby Langer, a dietitian who writes the newsletter Bite Me, which debunks food myths.

Michael Lee, Oatly’s executive creative director, says the story behind the processed-food backlash is often “oversimplified.” When the brand explains to consumers that it needs to use some processing to add fiber and make the product allergy-friendly, they get it, he says. “I do think it takes a lot of work as we get through this early conversation phase,” he says, noting that the company will continue to lean into both quality and sustainability to make its case. Oatly says the climate impact of its products can range from 44% to 80% below that of dairy milk.

Propelling the strength of cow’s milk is its naturally high protein content, a consumer priority of late that doesn’t seem to be slowing down. (That doesn’t mean plant-based milks are necessarily unhealthy: Soy milk also has protein, while other alt milks like oat or pea blends often contain fiber, another in-demand nutrient.) Still, with cow’s milk boasting a single ingredient (or maybe a few, if it’s fortified with vitamin D or A), it feels to shoppers like a purer bet. Dairy milk is “somewhat of a gold standard in terms of nutrition,” Langer says. Earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reworked the food pyramid to emphasize eating more animal protein and drinking whole milk. (Kennedy and other prominent influencers in the Make America Healthy Again movement also advocate drinking often-dangerous raw milk, something even the US Food and Drug Administration recommends against.)

Price is also at play. A gallon of milk in the US retailed for an average of $4.22 in May, data from the Department of Agriculture show. Although that’s about $1 more than at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s still less than many alt milks, which can cost $4 to $5 or more per half-gallon. With consumers feeling strapped for cash, it’s not unusual to see a family trade a fridge full of various plant milks for a cheaper single gallon of cow’s milk for everyone.

There are some bright spots for the industry, though. Coconut milk has seen volume sales grow, albeit from a low base, and data indicate that sales of higher-protein soy milk are also climbing again, especially among enhanced-protein versions, like the one Danone just introduced. European brand Oddlygood says it’s been able to keep customers engaged by continually rolling out novel flavors of barista milks, starting with a cinnamon-bun-flavored drink in 2021. Since then, the company has launched 12 flavors, including pistachio creme and salted caramel. CEO Niko Vuorenmaa says the company is listening to consumers’ feedback and trying to “address the upcoming trends.”

And even as grocery-store sales of many alternative milks slip, demand for oat milk remains especially robust in coffee shops, according to the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit promoting alternative proteins. Across Kiss the Hippo’s 11 coffeeshops in London, about 1 in 4 customers orders oat milk, says Kane Statton, the chain’s head of coffee. Like “Kleenex” or “Band-Aid,” many coffee drinkers who pass through the shops use “Oatly” as offhand for oat milk, Statton says.

Oatly has been leaning in, hosting events for baristas, bartenders and food industry insiders to demonstrate how alt-milk might fit into the future of beverages. At its recent invite-only “Aftertaste” event in Manhattan’s Flatiron District — which was staged like a nightclub, from the bouncer at the entrance checking names against a guest list to the dark room accented with neon-pink lighting — servers offered espresso martini jello shots made with Kahlúa and oat milk, smoky oat-milk lattes with mezcal and matcha, and other buzzy drinks.

Gone are the days of the great Oatly shortage of 2018, when moms in bougie Park Slope, Brooklyn, would tip each other off in private Facebook groups about restocks and entrepreneurial Amazon vendors could resell a $4 quart for $20, but the brand hasn’t lost its momentum, it maintains. In fact, North American sales ticked up 1.7% in the first six months of the year, a marked turnaround after last year’s 11% decline. These oat-based drinks “don’t sacrifice on deliciousness,” Lee says. “In fact, they may be more delicious and more interesting than the stuff that you’ve seen before.” —With Deena ShankerRead next: How Brands Sneak In Cheaper Ingredients to Protect Their Profit Margins