Zoe Kavanagh, chief executive of the National Dairy Council (NDC) has said that the group is ‘stepping into an education phase’, to emphasise the importance of dairy in diets.

Speaking on RTÉ Radio in response to a question on the rise of plant-based alternative diets, she said: “10% of young people may believe that dairy is harmful to their health but 42% of teenage girls are calcium-deficient.

“The calcium contained in a glass of milk is equivalent to eating 36 Brussels sprouts. The non-dairy alternatives are simply not nutritionally comparable.”

Go Vegan World

In response, Go Vegan World campaigner Sandra Higgins stated that the NDC was selling lies and misinformation to consumers and that "dairy is unnecessary and harmful to animals".

“To say that farmers look after the welfare of animals is of no concern because the animals are repeatedly artificially inseminated and taken from their babies,” Higgins stated.

She also proposed that Irish farmers should convert their farms to growing solely plant-based crops such as beans and hemp, and give up livestock farming.

The suggestion to convert livestock farms to tillage enterprises would come as unrealistic to many farmers in Ireland given the vast areas of land types that are only suitable for livestock farming.

NDC

The NDC chief said: “Irish farmers get out of bed every day wanting to keep their animals safe and healthy. We’re beautifully positioned to keep providing grass-based sustainable milk.”

Kavanagh is continuing to champion the dairy industry and is following on from comments she made at the Irish Farmers Journal Dairy Day in Punchestown last year.

“Marketing and reputation management will be key going forward. It’s up to the National Dairy Council to take a leading role in shutting down the bullshit,” she stated at the time.

On RTÉ today, she pointed to the key role that social media now has to play in influencing 20 to 29 year-old women, in particular, who have picked up a poor impression of dairy products through online anti-dairy campaigns.

According to Bord Bia, sales of milk alternatives, such as soy and almond milk grew by 38% last year and were worth an estimated €29m.

However, this was a fraction of the value of overall milk sales, which were worth €491m in 2017, with whole milk consumed by two-thirds of consumers and still proving the most popular milk type in Ireland.

Read more

Consumer milk sales up 7%

Listen: vegan voices: 'Time to shut down the bullshit' - National Dairy Council