Dairy’s next two competitive advantages

Protein quality is the next step for processors looking to gain market share, says Julian Mellentin

Dairy can take a lot of the credit for fuelling the protein trend, and dairy has been both the biggest beneficiary of the trend and the category with the most creative responses to the opportunity. The good news is that the future looks even better for dairy if the industry can up its game in nutrition marketing in two important areas.

Protein has undergone a 30-year evolution. Originally dairy protein, in powders, was of interest only to elite athletes, body builders and gym-maniacs. But the tipping point was around 2010. Protein’s image as a valuable part of a diet that helps people manage their weight got a boost from the publication in the New England Journal of Medicine of the results of the world’s largest-ever diet study. It investigated the optimum diet composition for preventing and treating obesity. The researchers found that high-protein, low-glycaemic index diets were the most effective for weight management.

It got a lot of media attention. Since then consumers have chosen to consume much more dairy protein and it has gone mainstream. Today consumers think only about quantity, not quality. It is, however, an untapped competitive advantage for dairy and it is time to start the process of informing people about protein quality.

As the chart shows, dairy protein is one of the highest quality proteins, meaning it’s more bioavailable and that it gives you the best results with the lowest quality – more “bang for your buck” if you like, than other protein sources.

Awareness of these advantages is currently confined to the most fitness-oriented consumers – just as awareness of protein was 30 years ago. But now a few food and beverage brands are beginning to talk about quality, targeting the health-active consumer. In Asia, for example, Japanese dairy giant Meiji is using the message for its high-protein single-serve protein drinks. And in the US a brand is using quality as a way to position its ice cream.

There are few categories as emotionally resonant as ice cream, with its connection to feelings of comfort, nostalgia and pure indulgence. But it is also a fiercely competitive space and there’s always an opportunity for an innovative new brand.

One such new brand is Protein Pints. Founded only two years ago, it is already on the shelves of 8,000 stores of major US retailers such as Target, Kroger and Safeway.

Protein Pints combines the emotional pull of ice cream and the protein trend, with each 473ml pack delivering 30g of protein, as well as only 4-5g of sugar per 90g serving. With the tagline “the tastiest way to protein” the brand is positioned as a protein-enhanced indulgence for active people, not an apology for eating dessert.

In what is possibly a first in ice cream, it communicates not only the amount of protein the products deliver but also the quality of it. The prominent front-of-pack label message reads “30g complete protein per pint” and consumers are also promised that the product contains all nine essential amino acids.  It’s a message which will resonate with consumers who are into sports and fitness, who are increasingly aware that protein quality matters. It will be new to the mainstream consumer. But first steps such as these, targeting the health active before the mainstream, are how new ideas are created.

Quality counts

If you want to create new competitive advantage and move consumers on from thinking only about the protein number on the front of the pack, and genuinely help people to make healthier choices, talking about protein quality is the next step.

Another opportunity to mark out dairy’s territory as a naturally healthy whole food is to start to communicate about nutrient density. Dairy is one of the most naturally nutrient-dense foods, beating almost all plant foods. Consumers don’t yet know what it means and marketers have paid it little attention, despite the fact that it is a science-backed advantage and connects to real consumer need. Since 2020 the importance of nutrient density has even been included in the US dietary guidelines.

As the two graphics show, milk and cheese are both highly nutrient-dense foods and the same can be said for most other dairy products. Dairy businesses need to start spreading this message. It won’t change sales overnight, but it’s a message which will gradually create a rising tide that will lift all dairy boats.

Importantly it underscores dairy’s valuable role in a healthy diet and provides a response to the anti-dairy lobby which has in recent times begun to erode the position of dairy in dietary recommendations in some European countries. Unless we present the reality, backed by science, that erosion could continue.

The future has never looked so full of possibility for dairy nutrition as it does today.