The 2019 fluid milk sales data has been tabulated by USDA and its doesn’t bode well for dairy. Fluid milk sales fell another -1.75% when comparing 2019 to 2018. However, that 1.75% figure is the smallest reduction in three years.
Over the past decade, annual sales have dropped between -0.6% and -3%. The decade began with 54.9 billion pounds of fluid milk being sold throughout the United States and that number slid to 46.4 billion pounds in 2019. That’s a loss of 8.5 billion pounds in 10 years.
Two bright spots
Flavored whole milk was among the products going against the sales’ headwinds as sales grew 10.1% over the past year. Adding to its luster, the flavored whole milk category has averaged 7.2% annual gains since 2012.
The largest winner, though, was whole milk. It climbed 1.4% during the past year. That 1.4% may not be a big number. But bear in mind that the full-fat milk category is almost 21 times larger in total sales than the flavored milk category. Whole milk has posted seven straight years of positive growth.
All other fluid milk categories lost sales in the past year:
- Skim milk, dropped 10.7%
- Buttermilk, down 7%
- Low-fat milk (1% milkfat), off 5.8%
- Reduced-fat milk (2% milkfat), slipped 2.5%
- Flavored milk, other than whole milk, down 2.2%
- Eggnog, fell 2.1%
