Milk Didn’t Fail. The Industry Lost Its Voice.
WHY DAIRY MUST RECLAIM CULTURAL RELEVANCE - NOW
By Dairy Connect
For more than a decade, the UK dairy industry has treated declining liquid milk consumption as a structural inevitability. A slow erosion of habit, explained away by generational change, lifestyle fragmentation, and the rise of alternatives. In response, much of the sector has focused on managing the decline rather than challenging it: innovating at the edges, defending on sustainability, and retreating into ever more technical conversations about format, footprint, and functionality.
What it has not done is defend the cultural role of milk itself.
This distinction matters. Categories rarely disappear because of product inferiority. They fade because they lose relevance. And relevance is not a function of price, availability, or even nutrition alone. It is a function of meaning.
Milk has not been rejected. It has been forgotten.
Steve Moncrieff, Founder of Dairy Connect, frames the issue bluntly: “We’ve mistaken drift for destiny. Decline only becomes inevitable when nobody challenges it.”
The consequence of this quiet retreat is visible in the data. Per-capita consumption has softened. Younger consumers do not default to milk. It is no longer anchored to daily rituals in the way it once was. Yet this is not because milk no longer performs a role in people’s lives. It is because that role has not been articulated in a way that resonates with modern consumers.
Meanwhile, the rise of plant-based alternatives has often been framed as a direct displacement of dairy. In reality, it has been something more subtle and more instructive. These brands did not win because they were nutritionally superior. They won because they were culturally fluent. They built narratives around identity, values, and lifestyle. They spoke in human language, not industry language.
Dairy, by contrast, spoke in disclaimers.
“We responded to a narrative war with footnotes,” Moncrieff observes. “That was never going to work.”
Today, the much-publicised momentum behind plant-based milk is softening. Trial has peaked. Repeat purchase is under pressure. Questions around processing, price, and nutritional equivalence are becoming more prominent. But it would be a mistake for dairy leaders to interpret this as a natural reversion to the mean. Categories do not regain relevance by default. They must actively reclaim it.
Nowhere is this more evident than among Gen Z.
This cohort is often described as “anti-dairy”. That is a misdiagnosis. They are not anti-milk. They are anti-assumption. They do not consume out of habit. They consume out of intent. They are highly attuned to function, authenticity, and alignment with personal goals - whether those goals relate to fitness, mental wellbeing, sustainability, or identity.
Milk has not been excluded from their lives because it lacks utility. It has been excluded because no one has articulated where it fits.
At the same time, this same generation is driving explosive growth in protein bars, recovery drinks, fortified waters, and functional beverages. Many of these products promise hydration, satiety, muscle repair, and mental focus - benefits that milk already delivers naturally. Yet these categories have captured cultural space that dairy has vacated.
“Consumers are paying premium prices for imitations of what milk already is,” Moncrieff notes. “That is not a product problem. It is a leadership problem.”
This matters because the global shift toward protein-led diets is not a passing trend. It is part of a deeper reorientation around performance, longevity, metabolic health, and cognitive resilience. Food is increasingly framed not as indulgence, but as infrastructure. In that context, milk should be central. Instead, it is peripheral.
The implication is clear: the dairy industry does not have a consumption problem. It has a relevance problem.
Solving that problem requires more than better packaging or incremental innovation. It requires a category-level intervention. A modern Drink Milk campaign would not be a nostalgic revival. It would be a strategic repositioning. Not of product attributes, but of meaning.
This is where the industry has historically underinvested.
Health, for instance, has been communicated defensively rather than confidently. Milk is one of the most nutrient-dense, naturally functional products in the food system. It supports skeletal health, muscle recovery, hydration, and cognitive performance. Yet the industry often communicates these benefits with hesitancy, as if worried about attracting scrutiny.
“We’ve been whispering while others shout,” Moncrieff says. “That has to change.”
Equally, dairy has neglected the emotional dimension of consumption. Milk once symbolised care, routine, nourishment, and strength. These meanings were not sentimental; they were structural. They anchored daily behaviour. When those emotional cues disappeared, consumption became optional.
Categories without emotional meaning become interchangeable.
Cultural visibility is the third missing piece. Milk has retreated from public life. It is no longer visibly associated with sport, wellness, education, or everyday performance. It has become an ingredient rather than a choice.
“Categories don’t stay alive by accident,” Moncrieff notes. “They stay alive by showing up.”
Critically, none of this can be solved brand by brand. Fragmentation has diluted dairy’s collective voice. What is required is shared leadership: coordinated investment, unified narrative, and collective ambition. The industry has behaved as a set of competitors when it needs to behave as a category.
Finally, this must be measured as a commercial intervention, not a communications exercise. If a national Drink Milk campaign does not drive frequency, penetration, and habit formation-particularly among under-30s-it will have failed, regardless of how well it is liked.
The risk of doing nothing is not collapse. It is something far more dangerous: marginalisation.
Milk will not disappear. It will become incidental. A background ingredient rather than a daily decision. And categories that lose their rituals lose their future.
“The real threat isn’t disruption,” Moncrieff concludes. “It’s drift. And drift is invisible until it’s irreversible.”
The question, then, is not whether the industry can afford a national Drink Milk campaign.
It is whether it can afford not to.
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