Dairy sales soar during lockdown

As the joint funded marketing campaign, Milk Your Moments, draws to a close last week, data has revealed how consumers chose to consume and connect over their favourite dairy based foods, to get them through lockdown.

Kantar data has shown that a huge 2.9 billion cups of tea and 1.7 billion cups of coffee were drunk over the peak lockdown period, increases of 21% and 19% respectively. Figures also show the overwhelming popularity of milk, with 94% of UK households purchasing milk over the last four weeks compared with only 16% buying a dairy alternative. Cheese has also seen unprecedented increases in sales, with consumption of cheese increasing 48% during lockdown as people found themselves making their own sandwiches and lunches as well as in scratch cooking such as homemade pizza, which saw a 235% jump in online conversations. Home cooking and the craze for banana bread also caused sales of butter to spike in the week of 22nd March, with a year on year increase of 69% in weekly sales.

Commenting, chief executive Dr Judith Bryans said: “Clearly when it mattered most, consumers turned to the foods they know, trust and enjoy when they were in the height of lockdown. We all came together to make this campaign happen and we should be incredibly proud how its created positivity for dairy and increased awareness around mental health issues, during such an uncertain time. We should also see it at a starting block to the future because we need to talk to our consumers on an ongoing basis.”

Rebecca Miah, AHDB head of dairy marketing said: “The Milk Your Moments campaign was hugely important, to not only support our industry in difficult circumstances, but to give back to our loyal consumers in a time of national crisis. Understanding that dairy has such a crucial part to play in human connection as well as nutrition is a real step change for the dairy industry, and we should continue to be proud of our importance to society, with these strong growth numbers demonstrating the fact.”

The campaign successfully hit its target of raising £100,000 in support of the UK’s leading mental health charity Mind. Donations were generated through visits to the Milk Your Moments microsite and by encouraging text donations.