Dairy Industry Sees Vegan Milk as a “Serious Threat”

At a recent conference in Chicago, executives discussed the challenges facing the dairy industry. One such challenge was the thriving plant-based milk industry that has put a damper on dairy profits. “I think the threat is very serious,” dairy group Select Milk Producers CEO Mike McCloskey said. “I think that many people have stolen the identity of milk over the years and we as an industry have sat back and not responded like we should have.” Media outlet Forbes recently outlined this challenge by posing that the plant-based industry is effectively “draining” its dairy counterpart due to consumer awareness of the inherent downfalls surrounding dairy production and consumption. “The consumer isn’t really looking for plant-based milk,” McCloskey said, “the consumer is looking for some added value, and we have that.” In an effort to eliminate perceived competition from the plant-based industry, congressmen from dairy-producing states recently proposed the Dairy Pride Act—legislation that aims to ban plant-based companies from using the term “milk,” which the bill’s proponents claim is misleading consumers.