Global market for dairy alternatives ‘to be worth 26 billion dollars’ by end of 2024 | Progresiv
The global dairy alternatives market is expected to reach value of 26.3 billion dollars by the end of 2024, as non-traditional offerings like rice milk, almond milk and coconut milk become increasingly popular with consumers. US-based Transparency Market Research (TMR) said that Asia-Pacific is expected to continue dominating overall demand for dairy alternatives in the coming years, despite ‘a considerable volume of success’ for the North American and European markets. 
It said that much of the growth globally is down to rising awareness of healthy alternatives and a proliferation of lactose intolerance, and predicted that the dairy alternatives market worldwide could be currently worth as much as 9.32 billion dollars.
TMR’s analysts said: “One of the key factors that work in favour of any market that caters to alternatives to an established one is an increase in the number of consumers or end-users that are seeing it as a better option than the original. In the case of the dairy and dairy products markets, it is a growing number of consumers that are finding themselves to be lactose intolerant or feel that they are better off not consuming lactose. The count of both is increasing at a fairly high rate across the world and is thus the prime factor augmenting the global dairy alternatives market.
“The same can be said with people who are allergic to milk. With the current rate of growth in their numbers, the global dairy alternatives market is expected to shine in the immediate future. At the same time, dieticians and doctors have been increasingly advising their patients in many cases to adhere to a plant-based diet, a large part of which includes plant-based milks and other dairy alternatives.”
As a consequence, alternatives such as hemp milk, flax milk, oat milk and even vegetable milk have begun to find prominence within the industry.
TMR added that the sheer breadth of choice available to consumers was helping to generate extra interest and sales within the alternatives market.
Despite the success stories of several players, one problem that still all have to tackle is the high costs of producing and marketing dairy alternatives. Several players add value to their products by adding several supplementary nutrients, further increasing the cost of their products. Products such as almond milk and coconut milk – even without the addition of nutritional supplements – is found to be exceptionally high for a large part of the working class consumer pool, thereby severely reducing their overall market penetration rates. (www.foodbev.com)
