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

Abstract

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.