Dairy is being challenged at the moment and doing nothing is not an option, the CEO of the National Dairy Council (NDC) Zoe Kavanagh has said.

She told those at the Irish Farmers Journal’s Dairy Day that the industry needs to be much more targeted in communications when it comes to facing those challenges.

“What would make sense for Gen Z, makes absolutely no sense for a baby boomer or a millennial so you've got to be very targeted in that online world. You've got to invest to build relevance, you've got to measure the impact of what you're doing. But, you know, doing nothing is not an option.

“Because, dairy is being challenged by a competitive set that we've never seen before, that competitive set is outspending us, every day. So, doing nothing will just lead to decline – decline in relevance, decline in habit and ultimately you know that it’s just a race to the bottom,” she said.

Plant-based

Kavanagh said that the plant-based movement is having policy-level prominence and influencing the formation of opinions both at government level and also with health professionals.

“The one change is that the science, the nutrition, can actually lose its importance to the conversation when it comes to health and sustainability.

“Ultimately, dairy’s functional benefits when it comes to health must be part of the discussion and must be exploited and leveraged to ensure that the decisions that are being made at policy level are truly looking at population health outcomes, and not just looking at trends that are responding to production systems,” Kavanagh said.

The consumer

Kavanagh also outlined how the consumer is athe heart of everything the NDC does”.

“We [the NDC] spend a lot of time within our production sectors analysing production and analysing supply chains and analysing ingredients businesses, but ultimately, the consumer is the new scrutineer shaping the direction of the consumption of dairy patterns around the world."

There is now a “young questioning consumer”, who Kavanagh said likes dairy, but in many instances is looking to limit, or moderate the amount of dairy in the diet, primarily around the fear of it being fattening.

“There are also areas around allergy and intolerance that are encouraging some dairy consumers to seek alternatives,” she said.

This young questioning consumer is also looking at ethics and climate change, she said.

Anti-milk discourse

The NDC boss also said that vegan advocacy groups and influencers are driving an “anti-milk discourse” at the moment, where some markets are questioning the role of milk in the diet.

Chief among the countries which have seen increased anti-milk discourse are the US, Canada, Australia and Chile, with the key issues at the heart of this discourse being health and nutrition, animal welfare and the environment.

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