Surely, precision dairy monitoring opportunities are offering farmers some interesting management options. The most current presentations by industry representatives and researchers represent new dimensions in precision dairy monitoring.

Ever since a year and a half due to the COVID-19 health crisis, there's been a question that strikes everyone’s mind – how can dairy farming reshape its innovations?

Truly speaking, the current pandemic forced dairy producers to rethink that the milk business depends on the sales of cheese and fresh milk.

Additionally, it exposed the vulnerability of dependency on external labor.

The emerging trends include the impact of veganism, besides climate discussion. On this note, here’s presenting the trends that are reshaping the current dairy industry this year. Let’s learn them through the narration.

#1 Snacking Sophisticatedly

With the change in customer’s lifestyle, smaller meals have become more appetite-satisfying than larger meals.

In fact, it’s driving the demand for innovation in healthy dairy snack choices. According to research pieces about dairy, a majority of customers skip a meal each day in favor of snacking (due to time and convenience).

The change in their behavior has already forced prominent brands to expand their portfolios with their products.

Time, convenience, and delicious goodness are the key factors that the brands force on the snacking dairy industry. It includes reformatting old-school dairy products into drinkable cartons too. Moreover, using milking supplies and modern equipment will help you bring modernization in this sector.

#2 Innovation acceleration

With the significant rise of alternative dairy products, mainstream dairy rivals face challenges in offering high-quality and innovations. These innovations offer consumer satisfaction. Today, young millennials are increasingly demanding advanced flavors like spicy yogurt dips, flavored alcohol-infused, and butter ice cream, etc.

Besides these flavors, consumers also seek texture-enhanced offerings that can give a pleasurable experience and a feeling of indulgence too. Studies indicate that consumers have a sheer demand for texture when it comes to buying drinks and food. So, it makes it evident that textures lead to an interesting food experience.

More specifically, the global ice cream industry capitalizes on the consumer demand for innovative flavors, low calories health alternatives, and texture. That said, the ice cream brands are currently tapping into the wellness trend.

As the world enters the new decade, customers are in high expectation to see an array of innovations. These include unusual flavor pairings and functional ingredients to the low-calorie choices, lactose-free, and plant-based options.  

#3 Fermented Dairy And Its Immense Benefits

Consumer awareness concerning gut health continues to upsurge since last year, with people becoming educated about the significance of a healthy functioning gut. In fact, for optimal gut health, surveys suggest that eating dairy can be healthy as it is rich in probiotics, prebiotics, and fiber.

These can be found in fermented dairy products like milk, kefir, yogurt, and cheese. According to study, fermented milk drinks come with health benefits, including kefir included for improving digestion and anti-inflammatory effects. Not to forget, it also helps in the stimulation of antioxidants that offers aids in disease prevention.

There’s no denying that kefir has emerged as a prominent dairy option. It’s a lightly fermented milk drink having a thinner texture than yogurt. It comes with a solid health profile and gets packed with vitamin B12 & B1, calcium, thiamine, vitamin K2, and folates.

All in all, it helps in improving the overall gut health as well as digestion. What’s more, kefir is a more consumer-preferred option for its less-sweet, bitter, and sour flavors. More brands are developing products that contain kefir grains.

While the world moves into the new decade, expectations are rife that it’s going to witness paramount momentum in the fermented dairy market, thanks to the positive influence on gut and digestive health.

The prebiotic ingredients industry is garnering global recognition by the dairy companies. They force them to re-evaluate the current product profile and investigate newer innovations. Due to the scenically sound reports, gut health has already become a fast-growing health trend in dairy.

#4 Transformation In Technology

With the newer advancement in dairy farming, it’s set to progress greatly over some decades. Not to forget, the dairy industry worldwide seeks to improve efficiency, alleviate costs, and comply with all corporate social rules and responsibilities.

The recent technologies have boosted the production of milk and herd management, with the use of drones for monitoring land and cows. It also makes the right implementation of the collar technology for evaluating the cow’s health and production levels, robotic milking equipment, and facial recognition. Besides milking, it washes, massages, and feeds the cows.

#5 Significant Plant-Based Alternatives

Health-centric customers gravitate towards dairy alternatives rapidly. According to reports, the younger consumers are the predominant demographic who swap to the dairy alternatives because of the increased awareness of the animal welfare and environmental footprint.

So, it results in the dairy industry that profoundly gets impacted by the emergence of plant-based alternatives. The alternative milk aisle gets crowded by the range of nut milk, coconut milk, oat milk, sesame milk, brown rice milk, pea milk, banana milk, and more.

The dairy alternatives will expand around the categories of the global dairy universe, with the alternative desserts, cheese, smoothies, and whipping cream becoming more popular.

One of the popular dairy alternatives to witness growth is the oat-based products, including spreads and chocolate snacks, cold brew coffee, and more. Today, consumers are becoming educated about the health benefits of oats and ingredients’ sustainability, in general.

The Bottom Line

So, these are the five trends that are bringing a lot of changes in the dairy industry. In the midst of revolutionary advancements, lab-created dairy has become a surprising innovation. With such technological revolutions, dairy proteins will get produced inside a lab. Their addition might be of high value among the consumers who are cautious about environmental footprint and animal welfare.

Nonetheless, lab-grown dairy faces multiple formulation challenges, one of them being the incapability of mimicking the texture and taste of conventional dairy products. Let’s see how the industry overcomes these challenges in the foreseeable future.