The consumption of milk and milk alternatives among young people in Germany: a comparative analysis of consumer groups

Our food system is a key driver of current environmental issues such as climate change and biodiversity loss, with meat and dairy production creating excessive amounts of greenhouse gases. To counteract these issues, a transition to more plant-based food practices, such as consuming milk alternatives instead of cow's milk, could be helpful. Hence, we examined the consumption of cow's milk and plant-based milk alternatives and the intention to consume ‘animal-free milk’ among young people in Germany (ages 18–26 years; N = 667). Additionally, we compared the socio-demographics, dietary habits, food choice motives, attitudes toward milk and milk alternatives, personal norms, and social norms of young consumers of cow's milk (n = 211), plant-based milk alternatives (n = 73), and both (n = 368). We found that the young people in our study still consume cow's milk more frequently than plant-based milk alternatives. All consumer groups differed significantly in the collected variables, with the largest effect observed for attitudes toward cow's milk and plant-based milk alternatives. Plant-based milk alternative consumers had significantly more negative attitudes toward cow's milk and significantly more positive attitudes toward plant-based milk alternatives compared to cow's milk consumers. All consumer groups were interested in trying animal-free milk but were less interested in buying it regularly. On average, the young people in our study were willing to pay €1.53 for 1 l of animal-free milk, which corresponds to the upper price segment of cow's milk and the regular price segment of plant-based milk alternatives in Germany. Our findings offer preliminary insights for further research and marketing of milk alternatives and for understanding interest in animal-free milk regarding a potential market launch in Germany.