Major Chinese Dairy Company to Debut Plant-Based Milk

Want Want China Holdings Ltd. announced plans to release a line of oat- and soy-based milks later this year. “We’ve put lots of investment into researching and developing kids’ packet products like oat milk, coconut milk, and cereal milk that we’ll soon be introducing in the market,” Want Want’s general director Alex Chen Junjiang said at a recent dairy conference. The company is the sixth largest dairy producer in China and is looking to diversify into the plant-based milk industry as it’s gaining momentum in the region. In an interview with media outlet Bloomberg, Junijiang predicted the Chinese plant-based industry will reach 55 billion yuan ($8 billion) this year, a number that’s double its current value. Dairy companies around the world are building their plant-based portfolios to keep up with consumer demand for dairy-free milk alternatives. French company Danone recently completed its $12.5 billion acquisition of WhiteWave Foods—the parent company of plant-based brands Silk, So Delicious, Alpro, and Vega—and plans to use the merger to expand the distribution of its plant-based brands worldwide.