U.S. plant-based milks - statistics & facts
Plant-based milk alternatives are by far the largest plant-based market segment in the United States. Sales of milk alternatives amounted to 2.8 billion U.S. dollars annually. In comparison, the next largest segment, meat alternatives, generated 1.2 billion U.S. dollars in sales. Not included in this milk category are plant-based creamers. Creamers were the third largest plant-based segment and generated an additional 760 million. In recent years, unit sales for milk substitutes have been slightly declining and are down by three percent to a total of 721 million. Other plant-based segments, such as tofu, tempeh, and seitan, as well as egg substitutes, have seen a growth in sales values, milk and most others are down.
The U.S. plant-based milk market and its brands struggle with growth, even adjacent plant-based creamers were one of the plant-based categories with no growing sales. It remains to be seen whether the trend of declining unit sales and sales values will reverse in the coming year or if consumers continue to shop less plant-based milk.
America’s thirst for almond milk
The favorite plant-based milk of U.S. consumers appears to be almond milk. Sales values of almond milk were more than twice the sales of the next largest category, oat milk. Together, both categories made up over 2.2 billion U.S. dollars in sales. Around 1.6 billion of those are accounted for by almond milk. U.S. consumers are most likely to pick almond milk from Blue Diamond as just above 36 percent of the almond milk market are accounted for by its products.The landscape of brands
Blue Diamond’s Almond Breeze is one of the most well-known brands on the U.S. market. Among consumers of milk alternatives, 38 percent like the brand. Furthermore, 80 percent of milk consumers are aware of the brand, making it the second most well-known brand milk alternative brand. Only Silk has a higher brand awareness, with 83 percent. Among pure oat milk brands, Planet Oat is the U.S. market leader, with sales of close to 190 million U.S. dollars.The U.S. plant-based milk market and its brands struggle with growth, even adjacent plant-based creamers were one of the plant-based categories with no growing sales. It remains to be seen whether the trend of declining unit sales and sales values will reverse in the coming year or if consumers continue to shop less plant-based milk.
