Dairy Processing - December 2020 - 4

dairy

Surge
Pandemic leads to sales growth.
by Donna Berry | donnaberry@dairy-food.com

" Thanks to its
continued
innovation
and ingenuity,
the dairy
industry is
poised to
continue
to grow
and deliver
nutritious
products for
Americans. "
Michael Dykes, International
Dairy Foods Association

4 2021 | DAIRYPROCESSING.COM

photo by New Africa @ stock.adobe.com

A

mericans are consuming dairy foods at a rate never seen
before, according to the US Department of Agriculture's
Economic Research Service. For some categories, this was
true even before the COVID-19 pandemic.
New data on annualized per capita consumption identify butter,
cheese and yogurt as the key drivers of dairy's growth, which reached
a record high in 2019. Other categories, namely fluid milk, which had
been declining significantly during the past two decades, experienced
a boom in retail sales during stay-at-home orders and show no signs of
going back into a decline.
" Since USDA began tracking per capita dairy consumption in
the 1970s, the trend has continued upward for five straight decades,
increasing 21% since 1975, " said Michael Dykes, president and chief
executive officer of the International Dairy Foods Association,
Washington. " While Americans have always turned to dairy products as
fresh, nutritious staples in their diets, they also value the versatility of
dairy in new, delicious and more accessible products.
" Thanks to its continued innovation and ingenuity, the dairy
industry is poised to continue to grow and deliver nutritious products
for Americans. "
In the past decade alone, domestic per capita consumption of cheese
is up 19%; per capita butter consumption is up 24%; and per capita
yogurt consumption is up 7%. Ice cream per capita consumption also
rebounded in 2019, increasing by a half-percent over 2018. Overall, ERS
data show American dairy per capita consumption across products
consistently increasing each year, with 2019 up 6% over the past five
years, 10% over the past 15 years and 16% over the past 30 years.
" The product mix in most demand by consumers is changing, " Mr.
Dykes said. " We eat more dairy than we drink these days, and dairy on
the whole continues to grow. "
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Dairy Processing - December 2020

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