Got Milk? Not This Generation.
Alarmed by dwindling sales to Gen Z, the dairy industry is going all out to get younger Americans on the milk train.To the marketers trying to reboot milk as a sports drink for Generation Z, Yvonne Zapata seemed like the perfect ambassador. An exuberant 24-year-old marathoner from Brooklyn, she describes herself as a proud Latina runner. Her nickname is Miss Outside.
The Milk Processor Education Program signed her to its 26.2 project, an ambitious effort to provide training, gear, advice and other support to every woman who runs a marathon in the United States this year. In March, Ms. Zapata’s face lit up a giant Times Square billboard. She starred in her own video. Her portrait is one of several anchoring the Gonna Need Milk website.
There is only one problem: Ms. Zapata would rather drink oat milk.
“Dairy milk is good,” she explained in an interview, “but I feel like realistically it’s unhealthy.”
She grew up hearing that dairy products weren’t good for her sports-induced asthma. Then her sister became a vegan and made a strong case against them. But Ms. Zapata is dedicated to getting women with different shapes and from different cultures to embrace running, so she joined #TeamMilk.
“I feel like that’s more important than whether milk is good for you,” she said.
Ms. Zapata is part of the Not Milk generation, teenagers and young adults who grew up ordering milk alternatives at coffee shops and toting water bottles everywhere. Turned off by the no-fat and low-fat milks served at school, worried about climate change and steeped in the increasing skepticism toward the dairy industry on social media, many of them have never embraced milk. Last year, members of Generation Z bought 20 percent less milk than the national average, according to the consumer market research company Circana.
Some tool mentioned this on Reddit the other day ' big milk ' and a collusion with Gov all from the 1950's onward ...
