The trend of ordering plant-based cappuccinos and lattes in your F&B concepts.
Have you been having guests requesting for a Latte with oat milk or a Cappuccino with almond milk? The market of plant-based milk is rapidly growing with an expected market value of US$ 30.79 Bn by 2031. With the growing trend among athletes and young consumers to adopt a vegan diet that includes only plant-based products, completely excluding dairy foods or drinks, demand for plant-based products and dairy alternatives is increasing. However, most important questions for our industry are: · Are we the hospitality industry ready for this? · What are the changes that we need to make to meet the demand? · How can we still provide a fast service during a peak Sunday morning with all these choices? When might you need to avoid milk? There has been a risinginterest among consumersto reduce their dietary intakeof animal-based food products amidst soaring focus on sustainability, health, and ethical concerns. As a result, the food industry is manufacturing novel plant-based goods that mimic many of the physicochemical and sensory properties of animal-derived meals such as milk, eggs, and meat. Lactose-intolerance Lactose is the main carbohydrate in milk. It is broken down in the simple sugars by an enzyme in the small intestine called lactase. Some people are born without the lactase enzyme or their lactase levels decrease as they age. For these people, consuming foods containing many lactose means it passes undigested along the gut and can trigger symptoms such as bloating, pain and diarrhea. Research shows smalls amounts of lactose – up to 15 grams daily – can be tolerated without symptoms, especially if spread out over the day. A cup of cow’s milk contains about 16 grams of lactose, while a 200g tub of yoghurt contains10g, and 40g cheddar cheesecontains less than 1g.
The Food Standards Agency has found that, among young people, a deliberate avoidanceof milk is becoming common: 7.82% of 16- to 24-year-olds now believe they are allergic to cow’s milk compared to 1.36% of people aged over 75. According to the British Nutrition Foundation, only 5% of people are thought to have a genuine problemwith digesting lactose,the sugar found in milk. (The Guardian)
Sixty percent of adults cannot drink milk
People who are lactose intolerant cannot digest the main sugar —lactose— found in milk. In normal humans, the enzyme that does so —lactase— stops being produced when the person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugarsend up in the colon,where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating, nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.
If you are American or European it is hard to realizethis, but being able to digest milk as an adult is one weird genetic adaptation. Somewhat less than 40% of people in the world retain the ability to digest lactose after childhood. The numbers are often given as close to 0% of Native Americans, 5% of Asians, 25% of African and Caribbean peoples, 50% of Mediterranean peoples and 90% of northern Europeans. Sweden has one of the world's highest percentages of lactase tolerant people.
Why You Shouldn’t Drink Milk
Humans are not meant to drink other animals’ milk, especially past the age of breastfeeding. The human body typically begins to lose its ability to digest lactose after infancy in a process known as lactose malabsorption. This is due to decreased availability of the enzyme lactase that allows your small intestine to break down lactose. In fact, researchers estimate that about 68% of the world’s population experiences this malabsorption, often leading to some level of lactose intolerance.
Studies have shown that milk is linked to a number of other cancersand diseases, such as breast, ovarian and prostate cancers. Saturated fat in milk and other dairy products is also the number one source of saturated fat in the U.S., which contributes to heart disease, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
Many people also worry about the health effects of hormones in their milk. There are a variety of studies on this topic, but steroid hormones pose the most “profound biological effects” (Malekinejad, H., & Rezabakhsh, A., 2015). Milk cannot be produced without hormones. This is the biological reality for humans, goats and any other lactating animal. Pregnancy-type hormones, like estrogen, must be present for a mammal to produce milk. Cows are not milk machines; they cannot constantly lactate without any stimulation. They must either be impregnated, usually via artificial insemination, or given hormones. Furthermore, cows must endure the tight, often painful conditions of dairy farms.According to a 2014 USDA study, 20% of U.S. dairy farm cattle are kept in “free stalls with no outdoor access.” Cows must often endure the mental stress of transportation, poor living qualities and early maternal separation. This leads us into the environmental concerns. Livestock accounts for 14.5% of global greenhouse emissions, with cattle being the top agricultural source of these emissions. This is mainly due to the methane they release, which is 28 times more potent in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. On top of this, a cow requires a large amount of food, water and other resources to live. With more than 1.5 billion cows on the planet, the environmental strain is apparent. Moreover, we have not even talked aboutgovernment cheese. (Wondering if you read that right? You did.) It started during the Great Depression, when farmers were struggling to produce food for the country. Government acts were passed to help farmers and stabilize pricesthrough WWII. In the 1970s, as another recession hit the U.S., the Carteradministration set a new policyto help farmers. This gave the dairy industry $2 billion dollars in about four years. Farmers produced as much milk as possible to receive government benefits, and the government bought excess milk to continue to support this industry. With no way to store the milk for long periods, the government processed it into cheese, butter and other dairy products. By the 80s, the government had over 500 million pounds of product stored across the country. (The Daily Campus) The future of plant-based milk Researcher in consumer behavior, Associate Professor Nitika Garg, School of Marketing, UNSWBusiness School, says the quality and variety of plant-based milk available has improved in recent times. With their rapid rise, Prof. Garg expects plant-based milk to become an even more dominant player in the milk market. Perhaps one day, it might even supplant dairy milk in popularity. “Much of the growth to date appears to be consumer-driven, so I would expect the trend to continue to grow. As these brands continue to scale up their manufacturing and marketing efforts, there’s a huge opportunity for a true milk substitute to emerge and compete with dairy,” she says.
According to Prof. Garg says governments also have a chance to take advantage of the anticipated global demand in the industry.
“People are choosing plant-based milk more and more, and so it would make sense for governments to take advantage of the opportunity to support the production here in Australia,” she says. “It would also still be supporting the Australian agricultural industry, which is an important consideration for some consumers.”
In the short-term, A/Prof. Garg says switching to plant-based milk might not be realistic for everyone because of its high price point.
“We do have an issue with making products such as plant-based milk accessible for everyone. They are more expensive, and some consumers who might want to switch can’t, especially with the cost of living right now where every dollar counts,” A/Prof.Garg says. “It might be something governments need to explore, to help subsidies in the same way they subsidies the dairy industry.”(UNSW Sydney)
Plant-based milks have benefits for the heart and the planet
Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, weighed in on the benefits of various plant-based milks in a February 1, 2022 New York Times nutrition advice column.
He said that coconut milk, like cow’s milk, is high in saturated fats, but other nut milks have a healthier fat profile. Almond, cashew, and macadamia nut milks, for example, are higher in heart- healthy unsaturated fats, as are soy, hemp, and flax milks. Soymilk provides the same high amount of protein found in cow’s milk, but Willett noted that protein deficiency is not a concern for most U.S. adults. Willett advised looking out for added sugar in flavored milks, and aiming for less than 10 grams per serving. He also suggested choosing products that are fortified with vitamin D and calcium, although he noted that Americans probably do not need as much calcium for bone health as they think they do. “When we look at dairy directly, we don’t see that high dairy consumption reduces fracture rates in terms of the evidence,” he said. Producing plant-based milks is also easier on the environment than producing cow’s milk, which requires large amountsof water and causes high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, Willettsaid. “It’s important to look at everything throughboth a health lens and an environmental lens at this point in time,” he said. (Harvard University)
Are we the hospitality industry ready for this?
Of course you could be ready to hop on this staying trend, start by finding out the different choices for non-dairy products. Currently, there are so many options that you can get lost in all the different plant based milks. Recommended would be to keep it simple and do not over complicate the offering, but still have all the types of milk the guest will ask for while also considering your costs. Our suggestion are:
· Oat-milk
· Soy-milk
· Almond-milk
· And/or Non-lactose milk In that order of importance.
What are the changes that we need to make to meet the demand?
You need to decide which milks you want to have, make your par stock, make sure to always have sufficient in house, train your staff on the differences of these products, i.e. Almond milk does not produce foam, best product will be oat milk which also has a barista option. Find a way of presenting the new offerings, is it possibleto arrange a small fridgewith your supplieror serve it in a chilled bucket.In the market already, new introductions are done by automatic machinethat that provides two different types of plant based milk. Suggestion could be made to change your offering if you can and always have full cow milk and oat milk and educateand inform your guests about the benefits.
How can we still provide a fast service during a peak Sunday morning with all these choices? Most important is to have ready your mise and place, something may change in your coffee area if you don’t have a machine that can serve 2 types of milks, and also could be complicate for the staff to have so many choices near by the coffee machine. However, think out of the box and make a effort to implement it, guests will have a greater experience and will impact your review scores positively. Overall, this is a trend that should be considered on a longer run and will be impossible to ignore therefore it is imperative to quickly hop on this consumer demand.
Article written by Mario Quiroz and Yoran Shukrula
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