The Aging Dairy Consumer of the Future

The ‘Dairy Consumers of the Future: Changing Focus to Components’ report about the dairy consumer of the future showcases that there are going to be some big population shifts in the U.S., with an aging and diversifying population.

Ben Laine, senior dairy analyst with Terrain, says that as you age through life, you demand different products.

“Going from infant formula to pizza to mac and cheese and into some healthy shakes and things like that, you demand different products as you age,” he says.

So, what does future dairy demand look like? According to Laine, it will push companies to dive into the level of component demand and what is needed to be produced on the farm. Nonetheless, Laine believes that we can meet the growing and changing demand.

“Demand growth is going to be a little slower, even just because of the slower population growth, but looking at the balance between fat and skim, that's going to shift a little bit. I think that demand is going to continue to grow for dairy fat, while the demand for skim solids will be relatively flat,” he says.

Laine shares that the aging population, like the upcoming 65-plus crowd, shows strong growth in fat demand, specifically from dairy fat.

“That is a positive story for dairy,” he says. “It's still not enough to completely offset the slowing population growth, but it is a more optimistic outlook for fat than I might have originally thought.”

The shift in the mindset of dairy fat consumption, particularly in an aging population, is the changed perspective on how dairy fat can fit into a healthy diet.

“Especially for that older population, they're starting from a smaller base where it was kind of shunned at one point to all of a sudden now this can fit into a healthy diet,” Laine says. “I think there is a lot of room to grow among that age segment, and I think there still will be going forward.”

According to Laine, this could potentially boost fluid milk consumption.

Diverse Population

Going forward, the population growth is disproportionate—as the natural rate of replacement is slower than the immigration rate.

“It’s kind of a silver lining,” Laine shares. “You do see higher levels of fluid milk consumption among immigrants in the U.S. Unfortunately, that does seem to slow after a few years, it sort of normalizes to the American diet. But initially, when you've got recent immigrants to the U.S., you do have higher fluid milk consumption among those groups.”

This shift could push the younger diverse population to drive demand for other products and push growth among cheese and pizza.

Laine shares that a keen eye is directed to the aging population and how we market the right products and get the attention of older Americans.

“There is a lot of attention on how do we market to millennials with social media and that's all important,” he says. “However, we can't neglect what's going to be a pretty important group of the population by 2030. All baby boomers are going to be over the age of 65. And by 2035, for the first time in the U.S. the older than 65 part of the population is going to outnumber younger Americans. So, it's an important population to keep an eye on and make sure that we're continuing to understand how we're going to be able to serve those needs.”