Are Plant-Based Analogues Replacing Cow’s Milk in the American Diet?

Stewart, Hayden; Kuchler, Fred; Cessna, Jerry; Hahn, William F.

doi:10.1017/aae.2020.16

Cited by 30 publications

(40 citation statements)

References 16 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Our work expands on the literature around milk consumption and substitution patterns, which has recently begun to include plant-based alternatives. Most closely related to our first line of evidence is Stewart et al [1], which examines household panel data on plant-based and dairy milk sales and finds that fluid volume of plant-based milk purchases can account for only about 1/5th of the decrease in volume of dairy milk purchases [1, p13]. A vector autoregressive (VAR) time-series model is used to simulate counterfactuals in which plant-based sales grow at a much slower rate, a phenomenon that the authors suggest might have occurred if the government had enacted a policy preventing companies from selling plant-based alternative products with the word "milk" on their labels.…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Exploring the impact of plant-based milk alternatives in the US

Mendez¹,

Peacock²

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This project aims to evaluate the impact of the increasing availability of plant-based milk alternatives on demand for fluid dairy milk in the United States. We investigate this question by conducting three analyses: (1) gathering and comparing different sources of plant-based sales data to investigate data variability and to determine whether plant-based milk sales are sufficient to replace declining dairy sales, (2) summarizing research on the relationship between plant-based and dairy milks to determine whether the products are price substitutes for each other, and (3) estimating demand for whole and 2% dairy milk in separate periods between 2001-2019 and comparing one period's responsiveness to price fluctuations against the other period to determine whether dairy milk demand has undergone major changes that could have been caused by the expansion of plant-based milk products. Our results confirm that the volume plant-based milk consumed has increased over time, but not enough to fully explain the observed decline in dairy milk consumption. We find that dairy sales are relatively insensitive to changes in prices of plant-based milks while plant-based milk sales respond to changes in prices of lower-fat dairy milks more than higher-fat dairy milks. Unusual data patterns and estimation results suggest that the dairy demand model needs refinement before drawing confident conclusions, but our tentative findings indicate that whole and 2% dairy milk consumption is decreasing despite decreases in price and that consumer responsiveness may have changed in recent years. That said, the overall results suggest that we cannot confidently attribute all of this potential change in dairy milk demand to consumption of plant-based milk products.

show abstract

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 69%

Exploring the impact of plant-based milk alternatives in the US

Mendez¹,

Peacock²

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Over the past years, dairy consumption has decreased in some countries, while the consumption of non-dairy plantbased beverages has increased (U.S. Department of Agriculture-ERS, 2014; Stewart et al, 2020). Health concerns, and increased awareness and interest in protecting animals and reducing environmental impact have probably contributed to the growth of nondairy plant-based beverage consumption (see McCarthy et al, 2017).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…U.S. per capita consumption of fluid milk products has declined because of competition from non-dairy plant-based beverages and a decline in the number of children in the population (Stewart et al, 2020;U.S. Department of Agriculture-ERS, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Choice Experiments to Estimate the Value of Differentiated Cow's Milk in Puerto Rico

Tavárez

Álamo

2021

Front. Sustain. Food Syst.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In Puerto Rico, we use a choice experiment method through in-person interviews to estimate consumer willingness to pay (WTP) for a half gallon of cow's milk that is produced locally, friendly to the environment and with ethics in animal management. The results from a random parameters logit model show that consumers are willing to pay a premium of up to 41% for differentiated milk, indicating a potential market for these products. We also find that consumer's income and education, and number of dependents affect WTP estimates. Implications for the development of differentiated milk products are discussed.

show abstract

“…Our work expands on the literature around milk consumption and substitution patterns that has recently begun to include plant-based alternatives. Most closely related to our first line of evidence is Stewart et al [1], which applies a vector autoregressive (VAR) time-series model to grocery scanner data to show that the change in growth rate of plant-based milk quantity sales can explain about 1/5th of the decrease in quantity sales of dairy milk. The authors use the results of the VAR model to simulate counterfactuals in which plant-based sales grow at a much slower rate, a phenomenon that the authors suggest might have occurred if the government had enacted a policy preventing companies from selling plant-based alternative products with the word "milk" on their labels.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 82%

“…These studies provide evidence of observable price relationships between plant-based and dairy milk as well as an indication that increasing plant-based milk sales can predict some of the decrease in dairy milk sales. However, there is also evidence that relative milk prices were fairly stable during the study periods [1], which indicates that plant-based and dairy milks may be imperfect substitutes for each other. In other words, relative prices may not be the only influence that plant-based milks have on the demand for dairy milk.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring the impact of plant-based milk alternatives in the US - Preregistration

Mendez¹,

Peacock²

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We provide a detailed research plan to evaluate the impact of the increasing availability of plant-based milk alternatives on demand for dairy fluid milk products in the United States. We will investigate this question by conducting three analyses: (1) gathering and comparing different sources of grocery sales data to investigate data variability and to determine whether plant-based sales are sufficient to replace declining dairy sales, (2) summarizing research on the relationship between plant-based and dairy milks to determine whether the products are price substitutes for each other, and (3) estimating demand for dairy milk in separate periods between 2001-2019 and comparing each period's responsiveness to price fluctuations to determine whether dairy milk demand has undergone major changes that could have been caused by the expansion of plant-based milk products.

show abstract

Are Plant-Based Analogues Replacing Cow’s Milk in the American Diet?

Cited by 30 publications

References 16 publications

Exploring the impact of plant-based milk alternatives in the US

Exploring the impact of plant-based milk alternatives in the US

Using Choice Experiments to Estimate the Value of Differentiated Cow's Milk in Puerto Rico

Exploring the impact of plant-based milk alternatives in the US - Preregistration

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About