By Sherry Bunting, Farmshine, June 11, 2021

“The beverage industry is savage.”

So says Rohan Oza, an American businessman, investor, and marketing expert behind several large brands. He was with Coca Cola until 2002 and in the past 19 years has the distinction of being a brand mastermind behind Vitaminwater, Smartwater and Bai beverages, among others, and he has been a recurring guest on Shark Tank, a television show where entrepreneurs pitch their fledgling businesses to several investor “sharks” in hopes of getting an investment deal for a percentage of equity in their businesses.

In an archived episode of Shark Tank from 2018 when a husband and wife pitched their apple cider drink, known today as Poppi, Oza had other pearls of wisdom to share about the beverage industry.

He said the largest companies aren’t creating the drinks, they’ve perfected the manufacturing and distribution. Instead, they rely on entrepreneurs to have the vision to bring a new beverage to market.

Packaging and marketing matter. Information is power. Flavor is king.

Oza said consumers want beverages they can feel good about.

That’s what has been missing over four decades in the milk industry, especially the past decade since 2010 when fluid milk sales took the sharpest nosedive. This has stabilized a bit in the past two years as whole milk sales rose 1% and 2.6% in 2019 and 2020, respectively, providing a bit of a safety net to overall fluid milk losses.

There is an innovative and entrepreneurial trend in bringing to market new dairy-based beverages that contain dairy protein, or ultrafiltered low-fat milk as an ingredient. However, MILK, itself, as a beverage, lost its power to make people feel good because people were not empowered with good information, and children were robbed of opportunities to choose the good milk — whole milk — at schools and daycares.

What milk itself lost as a beverage was the power to make people feel good about drinking it — because people lost touch with what they were getting from milk, what whole milk actually does for them. One big reason? GenZ-ers (and to some degree millennials) have grown up drinking (or tossing) the low-fat or fat-free milk as their only choices in school, and then found themselves searching for something else to drink in the a la carte line.

That’s changing. Research, studies and scientific papers keep coming forward, identifying the benefits of whole milk. When people try it, a common reaction is, “this is the good milk.”

Yes, whole milk is winning customers. Efforts by dairy producers — at large and through organizations like 97 Milk — have been focusing lately on giving the public the information they need about whole milk to make informed choices. It’s about giving people the opportunity to know what whole milk can do for them, and we hope that bills in the United States Congress as well as conversations with the Pennsylvania State Senate bear fruit in the ongoing effort to legalize the choice of whole milk in schools… so future generations can feel good about milk too.

We notice that if USDA can give the coveted Child Nutrition label to the Impossible Burger — a fake meat product with more saturated fat (8 grams) in a 4 ounce patty than whole milk (5 grams) in an 8 ounce glass and more sodium (370 mg for Impossible vs. 120 for whole milk) and more calories, then surely USDA can loosen its grip on the fat content of the milk choices for children in schools. Incidentally, the USDA approval of Impossible for school lunch is really a head scratcher next to 85/15 real beef because the real thing has less saturated fat, less sodium, and fewer calories.

Yes, USDA qualified Impossible Burger for reimbursement with taxpayer funds in the National School Lunch Program, but still outright forbids the choice of whole milk in schools.

USDA and Congress are moving toward universal free lunch and breakfast (even supper and snack) for all kids. FDA is in the procedural phase of developing a “healthy” symbol for foods that “earn” it — according to whom? Dietary Guidelines! The trend in government is toward giving consumers less information on a label, not more.

This is why milk education and freedom of choice are more important than ever. Even the Hartman Group young consumer insights cited at PepsiCo’s K-12 foodservice website state that GenZ-ers show a preference for ‘fast food’ and ‘familiar tastes.’ Millennials and GenZ-ers both show high preference for foods they grew up with.

Kids need to grow up able to choose the good milk — whole milk — not have that choice forbidden. That’s why the milk kids get to choose at school where they get 1, 2, even 3 meals a day is so important.

Give them the choice of the good milk that is good for them, and the power of information, and they’ll remember feeling good about milk.

Happy June Dairy Month! A big thanks to dairy farmers for all they do.