The rise and rise of plant milk
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 816 Ratings
🗓️ 1 July 2021
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
There's a bewildering world of milk alternatives. From oats, to tiger nuts, the list of varieties keeps growing but not everyone’s delighted about the march of plant based drinks. Some dairy farmers worry that the rural economy is at risk and just don’t get the hype. Elizabeth Hotson talks to plant-based pioneers, Camilla Barnard, co-founder of Rude Health and Alpro's General Manager Sue Garfitt. We also hear from ex-beef and dairy farmer Jay Wilde who now produces oat milk at his farm in Derbyshire in the north of England. And Carrie Mess, a Wisconsin dairy farmer and speaker on agriculture puts forward the case for cows' milk, whilst Deborah Valenze, author of Milk: a Local and Global History tells us the story behind milk consumption.
Presenter: Elizabeth Hotson Producer: Sarah Treanor
(Photo of various kinds of plant milk. Photo Credit: Getty Images).
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, this is Business Daily with me, Elizabeth Hotson. Once upon a time, milk came in full and low-fat |
| 0:08.7 | varieties and that was about it. But in the last decade, alternatives to dairy have taken the market |
| 0:14.8 | by storm. Eight years ago, almost nobody was buying almond milk. It was mostly soy milk that was available and rice milk, |
| 0:23.3 | and it tended to be in a rather sort of dusty corner of the supermarket. But why are consumers going |
| 0:28.5 | nutty for almond milk and other varieties? And what do the world's dairy farmers make of it all? |
| 0:34.1 | Dairy milk is just a wholesome product that is minimally processed and it's easy. |
| 0:40.7 | It's okay to be easy. This is Business Daily from the BBC. |
| 0:49.4 | A typical mid-morning in a cafe in the bustling heart of West London and I'm here to meet a pioneer in the alternative milk market. |
| 0:57.7 | Hello, is it, Camilla? |
| 0:59.0 | It is, good morning. |
| 1:00.0 | Good morning, hello. |
| 1:01.1 | How are you? |
| 1:01.8 | Very well, thank you. |
| 1:03.0 | Camilla Barnard co-founded Rude Health back in 2005, making Musley at a kitchen table. |
| 1:10.0 | But now alternative milks make up a huge part of the company's range |
| 1:13.7 | and it's not just oat and almond. |
| 1:16.0 | So we just walked into the cafe and the first thing I can see is the fridge in front of it. |
| 1:21.4 | It's absolutely full. |
| 1:22.7 | It's like a rainbow of blank milk drinks. |
| 1:25.7 | It is exactly that. |
| 1:26.7 | It's a rainbow. |
| 1:27.3 | I think we've got about 13 different |
... |
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