Take Part In Mission 4 Milk's #MilkPintChallenge To Rediscover Milk's Health Benefits

The future of British milk is uncertain as the popularity of cow’s milk has been declining in favour of plant-based alternatives such as soy and almond milk. According to Jamie Oliver’s Channel 4 documentary, sales of plant-based alternatives to milk have doubled in the last five years, meanwhile consumption of dairy in the UK has fallen by 20% over the past thirty years. 

Andy Venables, a dairy farmer and owner of rural marketing agency Hillsgreen, has launched a campaign called Mission 4 Milk, to help the British public rediscover the various health benefits of cow’s milk. He launched the campaign after realising that milk is declining most rapidly among millennials, which means many young people are at risk of missing out on valuable nutrients.

Mission 4 Milk has released a video of Andy challenging the British public to grab a pint of good old-fashioned cow’s milk and take a selfie of them enjoying it or take part in the #MilkPintChallenge and share it to @mission4milk. The video also advises on the various nutritional benefits of cow’s milk.

Andy believes that the way in which milk products are marketed to the public, in particular younger adults, plays a big part in its decline in popularity. 

He says: 

“Milk packaging and branding has changed very little over the past twenty years; meanwhile new brands releasing plant-based alternatives, such as soy and almond, clearly display the nutritional benefits of their products on their cartons, along with attractive branding. For this reason, many people are unaware that cow’s milk offers more nutritional value than many of its dairy-free counterparts and are choosing to leave their pint of cow’s milk on the shelf.

“Milk was once a staple item on every household shopping list,  but ‘free-from’ movements and intolerances which dominate the younger generations have made people start to favour dairy alternatives, and not always for the right reasons. While some people undoubtedly suffers from dairy and lactose-related complications, a large number of those who have given up dairy have done so as a result of self-diagnosis or because it is trendy to do so. They do not realise how many valuable nutrients milk contains. Mission 4 Milk’s aim is to communicate the health benefits of milk to people of all ages, arming them with valuable information before choosing to cut dairy out of their diets.”

In Jamie Oliver’s video child nutrition specialist Charlotte Sterling-Reed points out that plant-based milk alternatives do not offer a like-for-like substitute to dairy milk when it comes to nutritional content. Mission 4 Milk’s video serves as a reminder to the nutrients that cow’s milk offers.

Milk is still well-known as a great source of calcium, however it offers many other health benefits from the following nutrients:

The campaign was launched on 22nd February, in support of the inaugural ‘Februdairy’ - the dairy industry’s retaliation to Veganuary. 

To support Mission 4 Milk’s campaign, head to the Twitter profile @mission4milk and join in the conversation.