the best stupid Warrior names
Redrobin (yummm) (chain restaurant)
Mountaindew (soda)
Smokeweed (uhm)
Garfield (Gar being a fish)
Safeway (grocery store chain)
Whiteclaw (alchoholic seltzer water brand)
Mossyoak (camoflage and I assume hunting stuff)
Twocan (toucan- bird)
Starbuck (Starbucks coffee)
Starburst(candy..."unexplainably juicy")
Wildwings(Buffalo Wild Wings, mediocre chain restaurant)
Northface (clothing)
Budlight (beer)
Moonshine (alcohol)
Onefish (one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish is a children's book by Dr Seuss)
Twofish
Redfish
Bluefish
Goldfish (the snack that smiles back! Make them and Orangecrush siblings and both super hot so everyone has crushes on them)
Wingstop (chain restaurant)
Dodgeram (pickup truck, Dodge Ram)
Redneck (derogatory term referring to someone from the country/the southern United States or adjective describing something such a person does.)
Bluebunny (ice cream brand)
Rockyroad (ice cream flavor)
Moosetracks (ice cream flavor)
Baskingrobin (ice cream company and chain place)
Firefox (browser thing)
Otterbox (phone case)
Orangecrush (Orange flavored Crush, which is a soda)
Smartwater (bottled water)
Aquafina (bottled water)
Hottopic (uh)
Naturevalley (those one granola bars that make a huge mess of sharp crumbs that never go away like glitter)
Cornflake (cereal)
Redlobster (chain restaurant)
Applebees (chain restaurant)
Honeywheat (type of bread)
Mountainvalley(bottled water)
Oceanspray (cranberry juice)
Greengiant (canned vegetables)
Popeyes (fast food chicken)
Pineapple (fruit)
Allstar (the song from Shrek)
Rockstar
Smashmouth (the guy who sings the song from Shrek)
Runforest ("Runforest, run!")
Bluetooth (wireless connection thingy)
Almondbreeze (almond milk)
Pikepeak (Pike's Peak, mountain in Colorado as part of the US rocky mountains)
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The Mystery of Non-Dairy Milk: Is It Really a Milk?
Non-dairy milk is a plant-derived beverage product that people usually consume as a milk substitute. Non-dairy milk could be made from various types of plants such as traditional soy and almond, as well as from the more “hip” plants like hemp and macadamia nuts. People choose non-dairy milk over the traditional dairy milk for different reasons. Many people like myself, we don’t really have a choice since our body is incapable of digesting lactose. For many others, non-dairy milk is a good milk substitution because of its dietary and environmental benefits. In fact, non-dairy milk is making customers, investors and legislators raise their eyebrows recently because of its quick-gaining popularity.
Traditional milk consumption has a long history in the US. Stemming from the colonial period, the European immigrants carried with them the traditional milk diet to the US. Before then, the Native Americans consumed very little to no dairy milk. Over years of development, there is a normative notion of drinking milk that is hammered into the American’s mind. This norm comes from the avid advertisement from the US very own government. The FDA and FTC encourage citizens to consume milk daily because of its benefits to “fuel” physical activity and improve athletic ability, among all the other advantages that milk can give (Wiley 2014, 46.) However, this obsession with milk seems to have taken an unexpected turn.
Over the year of 2018, milk sales in the U.S. dropped $1.1 billion and non-dairy alternative sales are expected to rise from $12 billion to $34 billion in the next 5 years (Sitzer 2019.) This growing trend raises the question: what is making customers choose non-dairy products over milk?
Over the past few months, I visited 5 food stores in D.C. searching for non-dairy milk. These stores include Whole Foods at Foggy Bottom, Trader Joe’s on 14th , Safeway on 17th, CVS on 17th and Dean and DeLuca on M Street. With that question in mind, I’m hoping to find out how non-dairy milk rose to the scene so quickly through investigating my non-dairy experience in D.C.
Labeling Wars
Looking at the expected growth in non-dairy milk sales, the milk industry has begun their moves in this battle with the customer’s new favorite. A bill (SB 39) filed by state Sen. Francis Thompson is attempting to prohibit the labelling of non-dairy products as “milk” (Duchmann 2019.) According to Kleinpeter Farms Dairy, this bill is actually beneficial to the consumers as they believe most consumers don’t understand the health concerns that come with non-dairy. They claim that consumers would confuse the health benefits of dairy milk with plant-based beverages and this is hurting citizens’ rights as a consumer.
Throughout my non-dairy journey in D.C., I found out that only Trader Joe’s completely avoids labelling their non-dairy products as “milk”. Instead of saying soymilk or almond milk on their packaging, Trader Joe’s own brand non-dairy milk labels itself as a “beverage.” At Trader Joe’s, I was able to find an amazing selection of non-dairy products at a very fair price. The selection comes in new flavours that I’ve never seen before such as lavender blueberry or matcha almond milk. Though it was a busy day when I went, the shelves were still relatively well stocked. The wide selection and the beautiful display show that it is an important product at Trader Joe’s.
In comparison, Whole Foods also has a large variation of non-dairy milk and provides own-brand non-dairy products. The first picture shows a general view of the aisle where the non-dairy is at Whole Foods. On the left, the non-dairy milk occupied two full shelves and provided a wide array of products, ranging from soymilk to the more rare macadamia milk. At eye level, I found the Whole Foods brand non-dairy milk. Though the main product label still says “Soymilk” or “Rice Milk” in large and eye-catching font, there is a smaller label underneath it that clarifies the product as a “beverage.”
This strategy used by Whole Foods, and many other generic brands comparing to Trader Joe’s, could be because customers might be more inclined to buy products that they are more familiar with. We have been broadly using terms such as soymilk and though changing the label doesn’t change the products inside the package, people might still be more adapted to a certain “nostalgic” name like “milk”. So using the word “beverage” seems to only confuse the customers more and would only benefit the milk production companies.
New Craze over Non-Dairy Milk
In recent years, more and more people in the US are embracing the benefits and diet of non-dairy milk. Besides the extreme sales growth, the market is also coming up with a larger variation of products. In 2018, the new oat milk product Oatly came to market and led to a shortage so great that a case of oat milk was sold for $200 and more (Houck 2019.) I did manage to try this brand out before writing this review and I have to be honest, it was rich and flavourful. So viscous that it gives the same satisfying feeling of drinking milk, and so beautifully sweet that it goes with everything.
Other start-ups quickly followed this new growth in market and came up with new methods such as using fermented yeasts to make non-dairy milk. Before this blooming period of non-dairy sales, I remember only seeing the most generic brands such as Pacific or Almond Breeze in the non-dairy section in supermarkets. Now when I walk into the store, I always need to pause and think about which new products I want to choose. This wide range of products reflects the customer’s fast growing demand for non-dairy milk and that they are willing to pay to try the newest products. However, not all the stores I visited caught up with this trend quite as well as Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.
In both Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, I saw at least two floor to ceiling, well-stocked shelves of non-dairy milk neatly displayed around the breakfast food aisle. It was easy to find and encourages people who plan on buying some cereal for breakfast to opt for non-dairy products. These stores not only provided a wide array of products like mentioned above, they also gave a very good price, starting mostly at $1.5. This way, customers have more liberty to actually choose the items they want to buy instead of being limited by the store’s marketing strategies.
To my surprise, Safeway as one of the supermarket giants, had a limited selection of non-dairy milk when I visited the store on 17th Street. As seen in the picture on the right, most of the products were from generic brands such as Almond Breeze and indeed most of the non-dairy milk Safeway carried was also almond milk. The display was a bit disheveled as well. Not only most of the products were out of stock, the non-dairy milk also shared the shelf with packaged milk. At eye level where products were most easily seen by customers, there were some of the most expensive non-dairy milk starting at $4.
Worse than Safeway, I had the most unpleasant time at CVS and Dean and DeLuca when I was looking for non-dairy milk. For CVS, I did not have any expectations when I went in given that it is afterall a pharmacy. However, I still only found 4 types of non-dairy milk from 2 different brands, Almond Breeze and Silk. Not only the display was miserable, mixing in with all kinds of beverages such as milk and orange juice, the price was also extremely unfriendly. Most of the products started at $4.99 for a carton of generic non-dairy milk. At the back of the store hidden away from all foot traffic, I found one single box of smaller sized almond milk, priced at $2.79 as well.
But for Dean and DeLuca, I had high hopes as it is known for its bougie products and fancy selections. To my disappointment, the selection at Dean and DeLuca was not any better than CVS. Though the shelf was well-stocked and nicely displayed, the variation at Dean and DeLuca consisted of only original soymilk and almond milk. The only advantage they had over CVS is that the price was more fair than that of CVS, starting at $3.5 for the exact same products that CVS had. However, as an actual food store, Dean and DeLuca fails to even compete with the standard that Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods set.
From this comparison of variations and pricing between stores, I found that Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are more inclined to catch up with the growing trend of non-dairy milk. One of the reasons customers prefer non-dairy milk over regular milk is that more people become aware of the environmental impact that milk production carries (Sitzer 2019.) A study by University of Oxford found that producing a glass of milk emits 3 times more greenhouse gas than milk alternatives such as plant-based beverage (Sitzer 2019.) This might be one of the driving force for the rapidly growing non-dairy demand among customers.
Stores like Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods are known for their distinct brand strategies. Trader Joe’s is your hip, neighbourhood food store that takes into concern of customer’s needs and feelings. From the mural I saw right after I entered to the handwritten price tags, I felt that Trader Joe’s is customer-friendly and is willing to change based on customer’s interests. Likewise, Whole Foods brands itself as an organic market, providing the most peculiar organic products. Organic products are not only better for consumption (arguably), they are also associated with a better environment because of the elimination of pesticide use. For these particular reasons, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods seem to be open to adapting the new trend of non-dairy diet in the US in order to better present themselves in the market.
In contrast, the traditional food giant Safeway and smaller stores such as CVS drive to provide a “traditional” shopping service for customers. They present a sufficient selection that people will conveniently need and can get quickly, but nothing more. Thus, there is not as much of a reason for them to expand their non-dairy selection as they already have the most regular ones that people might need in a quick second. Dean and DeLuca remains the one store that I could not figure out. Marketed as a luxurious food store, I would expect Dean and DeLuca to provide some exotic types of expensive non-dairy milk. Instead, I found only the most basic kinds. My only thought on that is that they really do not care about selling non-dairy products.
From my investigation of non-dairy milk (out of personal interest mostly), I find that the trend of non-dairy milk will inevitably continue to grow in the US in the future as customers see more and more products come to market. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods’ steady expansion and endlessly long lines seem to prove their successful marketing strategies; and these stores happen to provide the largest selection of non-dairy milk.
American customers today are concerned about much more than convenience and low prices. Non-dairy milk appears to have found itself a niche that was not filled before in a “traditional” grocery shopping experience.
-- Monica Cheung
Reference:
Duchmann, H. (2019, April 10). Legislators could remove 'milk' labeling from non-dairy products. Retrieved from
https://www.businessreport.com/newsletters/legislators-could-remove-milk-labeling-from-non-dairy-products
Houck, B. (2019, March 26). America's Obsession With Oat Milk Is Hurting the Dairy Industry.Retrieved from
https://www.eater.com/2019/3/26/18282831/milk-sales-fall-2018-plant-based-alternatives
Sitzer, C. (2019, March 26). Milk Sales Drop by More Than $1 Billion as Plant-Based Alternatives Take Off. Retrieved from
https://www.greenmatters.com/p/milk-sales-down
Wiley, A. S. (2014). Cultures of Milk. Harvard University Press.
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