If your business is a café or has a café component to it, there’s a good chance you offer, or have had customer request non-dairy milk options in their drinks. And if you don’t currently offer dairy-alternatives, now is a good time to start with the plant-based milk industry having a boom in popularity.

While once upon a time cafes might have offered full cream, skim, and maybe soy milks, there is now a huge variety of plant-based ‘milks’ on the market.

Soy is still the most popular dairy milk alternative, according to research in IBISWorld’s Soy and Almond Milk Production in Australia, sitting at 47.6 per cent of the market, most likely due to its longstanding presence.

Almond milk is making fast gains however, at 44.2 per cent, while rice milk, coconut milk, and others such as hemp and oat share a smaller slice but are expected to grow in the next five years.

The research shows that the Australian soy and almond milk industry is currently worth a staggering $237.1 million, with average industry growth at 8.3 per cent from 2014-20.

The rise in the popularity of plant-based milks is due to a combination of factors including an increasingly health-conscious consumer population, retail prices, and brand recognition.

The report also said that greater acceptance of soy milk and other dairy alternatives as genuine replacements for dairy milk, particularly in the food service and accommodation sectors, is also anticipated to support industry growth.