Testing demand for plant-based milk alternatives

What is shaping food & beverage

Food and beverage brands compete on taste, price, health perceptions and shelf presence. Small changes in pack, recipe or price can shift share quickly.

• Health and natural claims influence choice
• Quick commerce and modern trade change shopping habits
• Taste remains the deciding factor at repeat

A plant-based dairy start-up, working in Australia, New Zealand & United Kingdom. Client identity is withheld to protect confidentiality.

Organisation

A plant-based dairy start-up

Sector

Food & beverage

Team engaged

Market Research

Services

Consumer panel, Quantitative research, Research consultancy

The start-up had an oat-based product performing well in cafés and wanted to expand into supermarkets. Investors asked who would buy it at retail, at what price, and how it would compete with established brands.

• Deliver on the brief: testing demand for plant-based milk alternatives.
• Understand the views, needs and behaviour of milk buyers.
• Produce results that can be compared across groups and locations.
• Give the client evidence it can act on within 7 weeks.

The work focused on 2,500 milk buyers.

• milk buyers2,500

Audiences we typically reach in food & beverage

Shoppers and consumersHouseholdsRetailers and kirana ownersQuick-commerce usersFood-service buyers

Coverage: Australia, New Zealand & United Kingdom. Markets: Australia, New Zealand and United Kingdom.

• Australia
• New Zealand
• United Kingdom

A structured quantitative design, so results could be compared across groups, locations and time.

1. 1Brief
2. 2Online survey with price testing
3. 3Segmentation
4. 4Insight

We surveyed people who bought milk or milk alternatives, covering current choices, reasons for switching, taste expectations, sustainability attitudes and price sensitivity using structured price-acceptance questions. Respondents were segmented by needs and behaviour, and results were analysed by country.

Consumer panelQuantitative researchResearch consultancy

milk buyers

2,500

• Business respondents were screened on role, company size and involvement in the decision before being invited.
• Online respondents were drawn from verified panel members who matched the screening criteria, with quotas on key profile attributes.

• The online survey was mobile-friendly and offered in respondents' languages.

• Digital fingerprinting and duplicate checks
• Attention, speed and straight-lining checks
• Review of open-ended answers
• Logic and range checks on the final data
• Work carried out under our ISO 20252 quality procedures

• Cross-tabulation by key groups and locations
• Significance testing on the differences that mattered
• Segmentation into groups the client can act on
• Price and trade-off analysis

• Flexible buyers who used both dairy and plant-based milk were the biggest opportunity, motivated mainly by taste in coffee rather than sustainability.

The largest opportunity was not the committed vegans the company first assumed.

• Build on the core insight: the largest opportunity was not the committed vegans the company first assumed.
• Focus effort where the evidence was strongest: flexible buyers who used both dairy and plant-based milk were the biggest opportunity, motivated mainly by taste in coffee rather than sustainability.
• Re-measure after the changes to confirm the effect.

• The start-up positioned its retail product as the best plant-based milk for coffee, priced close to leading competitors, and used the segmentation in its investor presentation.

What changed in the business as a result of the work. Impact is described qualitatively.

• Insight report and management presentation
• Cleaned data file and data tables

• Repeat the measure after changes are in place to track progress.
• A natural follow-on question: how healthy is the brand?