Nielsen Scantrack data shows sales of alternative milks have taken off in the past two years, with 25 per cent of total market share of all milk categories. In 2017 Kiwis spent $52 million on them, but that has risen to $144m in the last 12 months, with almond milk the most popular, followed by soya.
The value of the alternative milk market is growing at 7.6 per cent a year, while cow milk value is flat.
But milk substitutes such as soy, almond, oat and rice have double the greenhouse gas emissions of Fonterra’s milk produced in New Zealand, when compared on the basis of their nutrient content.
Nutritionists have criticised plant milks for being “flavoured water” with little nutritional value. However animal rights group Safe rejects the criticism, saying dairy has other negative environmental impacts.
“Nutrients from effluent run-off also contribute significant damage to our natural environment and ecosystems. Plant-based milks have the benefits of being much kinder to our planet, human health and animals,” Safe’s head of education Nichola Kriek said.
Fonterra said fake milks were also inferior nutritionally to cow’s milk and cost more. Milk protein was up to 30 per cent higher in nutritional quality than the quality of the highest scoring plant proteins and over three-fold higher in nutritional quality than the worst scoring plant proteins.
The top scoring plant protein is soy at 28.1 grams per litre, but macadamia (6.1g/l), rice (7.4g/l) and almond (8.1g/l) rate much lower. Cow’s milk produces 32g per litre of protein.
Fonterra’s chief technologist Dr Jeremy Hill said a collaborative study by United States and Swedish universities examined cow’s milk and others for their environmental impact, based on nutrient content.
The study looked at 21 essential nutrients in a range of retail drinks available in Sweden and found that the GHG production to nutrient content of cow’s milk was significantly less than all other beverages.
Swedish milk had GHG production to nutrients content less than half that of the soy-based milk substitute and less than 10 per cent of the rice-based milk substitute.
