What’s hybrid dairy, you ask? It’s a blend of traditional dairy ingredients – say, cow’s milk – and plant ingredients, e.g. fava bean protein, often with the idea to deliver a more eco-friendly product without compromising the taste, nutrition or functionality consumers have come to expect.
While hybrid dairy isn’t suitable for vegans or those with a dairy allergy, the category targets flexitarians who are seeking a happy medium: a product that delivers on health and sustainability but isn’t radically different from their usual fare. Therein lies an admission: plant-based alternatives don’t always strike a chord with the mainstream consumer.
Research conducted by The Good Food Institute in the UK and Germany showed that half of shoppers were willing to eat more plant-based foods or less meat and dairy in 2024 but perceive plant-based alternatives as subpar in terms of taste, availability, ease of use and value for money. In European markets where sales volume rose, the growth was typically driven by private labels, largely thanks to their affordability compared to branded products.
If hybrid dairy offers ‘the best of both worlds’, how would it fare as a private label offering? This is what the Netherlands’ largest supermarket chain Albert Heijn will find out in the months ahead as it unveiled its first-ever private label hybrid milk range alongside Danish foodtech firm PlanetDairy and private label dairy manufacturer Farm Dairy.
Marketed as ‘milk with plant ingredients’, the range comprises skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole milk options. It is made with between 60-70% traditional dairy with the rest made up of plant ingredients; specifically, fava bean protein and sunflower oil.
All hybrid products have comparable levels of Vitamins B, B1 plus added Vitamin D and contain lower levels of protein and saturated fat compared to dairy milk. As for protein and saturated fat, both metrics are slightly lower than traditional dairy (scroll to the end of the article for exact numbers). Importantly, the hybrid range is priced the same as the supermarket’s traditional own-brand milk, at RRP €1.39.
Sold across the Netherlands – a market that’s experienced a decline in plant-based sales (a change of -8.3% in volume and -7.4% in units of milk alternatives sold since 2022, according to GFI data) – and positioned next to the classic fare, would the hybrid product fly off the shelves? Maybe – if you keep the message simple.
“It’s a tall order to launch a new concept,” said Jacob Skovgaard, a former Arla Foods strategist and CEO of PlanetDairy, the Danish foodtech firm that came up with the formulation of the hybrid milk. “There are lots of good examples of hybrid products that are performing very well – take Lurpak Spreadable, the blend of butter and rapeseed oil, as an example. When it was launched, it was very difficult for the dairy industry to accept that concept. But it turned out to be a massive success and now, people don’t think about it. They enjoy the product because it comes very close to offering the full experience.
“If we present this more as a dairy product and be transparent about the story on the side or back of the pack – but you don’t really shout about it front-of-pack – then we have a higher chance of success.”
“This is our strategy – to give the full experience but reduce the carbon emissions.”
With dairy being a major contributor of emissions from agriculture, reducing the product’s carbon footprint was a key USP for PlanetDairy. So how does the hybrid range compare with traditional milk?
“Measuring the emissions and to a point where you have a precise lifecycle analysis and can claim the reduction [on pack] is a complex thing,” Skovgaard told us. “And so, Albert Heijn have decided not to put the specific CO2 reduction number on pack.
“But we work with a third-party Swedish company, Carbon Cloud, which verifies our carbon emissions figures and compares them to the equivalent dairy benchmarks. On those particular milks, there is a reduction of between 20 to 35%.”
Skovgaard is quick to stress that PlanetDairy doesn’t want to alienate consumers from traditional dairy – but rather, find a middle ground where both taste and sustainability can coexist. “We are dairy lovers - we just believe that the traditional dairy’s carbon emissions are too high. Now we have got technology that can give you the full dairy experience without the carbon emissions and that is our destination.”
‘You have to nail taste’
The lower carbon footprint may be a big pull for consumers initially – but to build loyalty, taste needs to be right.
“Taste is king – you have to nail that first before you look at other parameters, like nutrition, functionality and price,” Skovgaard said. “Once you’ve got taste nailed, then typically, either the functionality will be impacted or the price is going to be quite high, so you have to then adjust those without bringing the taste down.
“If price was not a consideration, the challenges would not have been so great. But we wanted to create a scalable product at a fair price that satisfies dairy consumers and has a lower carbon footprint.
“The whole intention here is to be on parity with standard fresh milk – in terms of price, taste and functionality. From a nutrition point of view, we are also very close – we couldn’t achieve the same level of protein without impacting taste, but our product is still higher in protein than plant-based alternatives.”
As for why the supermarket chain chose to launch a milk range in particular, Skovgaard explained: “When we approached Albert Heijn first, we came to the table with our cheese, milk and also with yogurt. “They had an opinion that milk would be a good first entry into hybrid [category] and decided to do that together with a range of meat and meat hybrid products as well. Milk signals value, it gets attention from the industry and consumers and then there’s the size of the category.”
So is the intention for this range to be a permanent fixture in the store?
“I’s definitely the ambition that it’s a long-term, permanent range and an initiative which will grow in size,” the chief executive said.
“And we are increasingly getting calls from retailers in Benelux and Scandinavia who want to work with us on implementing our technology in their area. They’re talking about creating hybrid ‘roadmaps’ because they all have CO2 reduction targets.
“Plant-based alternatives are not going to bring them there; retailers now realize the growth is not there anymore. So they see hybrid dairy as the tool to deliver on those targets.”
Skovgaard concluded: “My hope and our vision is that in a few years from now, this is not going to be a special range, but the norm.”