Februdairy: The Desperate Dairy Campaign

Have you heard of Februdairy, the dairy industry’s campaign to promote their cruel industry? Likely not as it, unsurprisingly, fails to get the attention the dairy industry had hoped for. 

Februdairy is being promoted as ‘a chance for everyone to be grateful for our special relationship with cows’ because according to the dairy industry a ‘special relationship’ with another is the exploitation of their autonomy for unnecessary human wants. Attempting a (not-so-catchy) word play similar to that of Veganuary, a charity which encourages those to go vegan for the month of January, ‘Februdairy’ is the dairy industry’s desperate attempt to fight back. Their fighting is likely to be a lost cause, though. The dairy industry’s desperation to remain current with its unoriginal campaign name is gloriously symbolic of its desperation to remain current in an increasingly plant-based world. 

The sales of dairy milk has dropped by £240m in two years, whilst the plant-based milk industry continues to boom. Indeed, a recent poll by Blue Diamond Almond, an almond plant-based milk company, concluded that almost 20% of UK adults plan to try a dairy-free diet in 2018. This year 150,000 people also signed up to Veganuary and pledged to go vegan for the month of January: an exciting new record for Veganuary. With a retention rate of over 50%, we will be welcoming over 75,000 new vegans worldwide. 

The dairy industry itself has also acknowledged the threat to its industry as a result of animal activists, with chief executive of Trade body Dairy UK, Dr Judith Bryan, commenting, ‘vegans have very loud voices and are very vocal and keen to put their message across…we will not have a dairy industry in five-ten years if consumers don’t buy our products’. Indeed, the number of people ditching dairy in favour of dairy alternatives has increased 10% year on year, but the dairy industry has chosen to ignore this. Only now that they have realised the threat to their industry is the dairy industry attempting to fight back, but with 1,658 Februdairy twitter followers in comparison to Veganuarys’ 33,800, Februdairy is failing to make any impact and we’re not surprised.    

Don’t want to support the cruel dairy industry? Head over to our online supermarket thevegankind.com/supermarket and choose from our wide range of plant-based milks. All of the taste, none of the cruelty.