The time of Joris Driepinter – the character who once promoted three glasses of milk a day in commercials – is far behind us. Dairy products such as milk, buttermilk, custard and desserts are selling less and less.
Market researcher IRI saw a drop in the number of liters of these products sold in Dutch supermarkets between 2016 and 2019 by percentages of 6 to 25 percent.
Bas Roelofs, responsible for the Netherlands at dairy giant FrieslandCampina, acknowledges that dairy products are not exactly winning in our country. Some reasons according to him: the huge choice that a consumer has in 2020 when it comes to drinks. From water and soft drinks to the many teas and coffees.
Consumers are also increasingly reluctant to buy dessert because of the many added sugars. “We are working hard to reduce those sugars in our products,” says Roelofs in the NOS Radio 1 News.
Smaller packaging
Incidentally, not the whole dairy shelf is doom and gloom; products such as yoghurt, curd cheese and long-life milk, for example in the cappuccino, did rise in turnover.
And FrieslandCampina is therefore fully committed to this, says Roelofs. “We will also develop more smaller and resealable packaging and drinking bottles for the road, so that we can sell them in, for example, pump shops and kiosks at the station.”
The group is also developing ‘new’ milk, which has been produced in a more sustainable manner and carries the PlanetProof quality mark. For this quality mark, the livestock farmer invests in larger stables for the cows and in grassland with willows and herbs.
Tim and Bart Kester are two farmers who are developing sustainable milk. They do not panic due to the declining dairy market. Dutch dairy is highly regarded in the world. So they expect it to be fine.
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