Global dairy industry retail sales reached an estimated $628 billion in 2021 and are expected to reach $818 billion in 2026, according to Euromonitor projections.
Euromonitor also calculates that the dairy industry will register a compound annual growth rate of 5.4%n in that period, the company Oatly reported.
The global dairy industry consists of milk, ice cream and frozen desserts, yogurt, cream, cheese and other dairy products.
Oatly currently operates primarily in the global milk category, which is the largest subcategory within dairy products.
According to Euromonitor, global dairy industry retail sales are estimated at $190 billion in 2021, representing 30% of the global dairy industry in 2021.
In some developed markets, per capita dairy milk consumption has been steadily declining, and the trend has continued over the past decade as plant-based dairy products have increased in popularity.
Dairy industry
Oatly expects this trend to accelerate further in the coming years as the growing plant-based dairy offerings across the dairy portfolio expand across all product categories, including ice cream and yogurt.
Global plant-based dairy industry retail sales were estimated at $20 billion in 2021, according to Euromonitor, representing about 3% of the global dairy industry (excluding soy beverages in China).
Within the global dairy industry, plant-based milk accounted for approximately 9% of the global dairy milk category (not including soy beverages in China) in 2021.
As of 2021, dairy alternatives in other dairy categories have less than 1% penetration, highlighting the opportunity ahead in the broader plant-based dairy sector
In several plant-based dairy products, oat-based alternatives have outperformed the broader dairy category in recent years.
In the United States, sales of oat milk products grew 68% year over year between 2020 and 2021, according to Nielsen, and represented the second-largest dairy alternative category after almond milk.
At the same time, in the UK, sales of oat milk products grew 31% year-on-year between 2020 and 2021, and it is the largest dairy alternative drink category, according to IRI.
