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Consumer insights: Optimising milk in-store
The wider Dairy category is the most valuable of the Grocery categories, equating to £16.4 billion spend (NIQ, 52 w/e 12 July 2025), being present in more shopping baskets than any other category.
A third of its value comes from milk, making it integral for stores to stand out in this category to win shoppers. This research was undertaken by AHDB in collaboration with Linney, and milk processors, with the aim to understand how to improve shopper engagement with the milk aisle and pack.
What are the opportunities?
Despite being extremely important within retail, cow's milk volumes have declined by -2.6% in the last year, equating to a loss of 102 million litres (NIQ, 52 w/e 12 July 2025 – for latest performance, please visit our dairy retail dashboards). Milk usage in-home has dropped across of the day, but the biggest drainers are fewer occasions for cereals and tea (Worldpanel by Numerator Usage, 52 w/e 23 February 2025). Around 1 in 5 claim they are thinking about cutting back on dairy products, and among those, 39% claim this is due to animal welfare concerns and 37% for health reasons (AHDB/YouGov Consumer Tracker, May 2025). Despite being a category with high levels of shopping satisfaction, due to its functionality, 43% of consumers agree they would like more information or ideas about milk at shelf to help them make a decision (IGD ShopperVista). This highlights communication opportunities to drive conversion to purchase milk, as well as improve long-term perceptions of the industry.
Who is this analysis for?
This research aims to help retailers and processors with evidence as to what shoppers are looking for in aisle and on pack for milk that would influence behaviour and, in turn, protect and grow sales. While this is the first dairy instalment of our ‘Reinventing’ series, AHDB has been integral in driving changes in-store, online and on pack for red meat. These studies benefit levy payers by initiating change in market, helping improve the reputation of the industry among consumers and increase demand.
Key findings
- Consumers engage differently with milk aisle and pack communications, meaning different messaging themes worked best for each touchpoint. However, within each touchpoint, consistency in messaging is key
- The messaging themes that showed the strongest potential to influence consumers were key nutrient benefits and farming practices (including cow welfare) and quality standards.
- For the aisle, having communication around the natural nutritional benefits of milk performed strongest. When adding health communication in aisle, 25% of shoppers claimed they would purchase more milk than usual. The most relevant health message of “Milk naturally contains 7 vitamins and minerals – vitamins B2, B5 and B12, calcium, iodine, potassium and phosphorus” positively shifted the most equity metrics, resulting in the aisle being seen as high quality, inspirational and exciting.
- On pack, farming communication was the clear favourite. Cow-centric visuals of animals grazing performed best alongside farming messaging such as “Dairy produced in the UK is to world-class food and farming standards” and “British cows are out on grass for most of the year, allowing them to express their natural behaviours”. Logos and stamps can reassure consumers.
Visuals
Source: AHDB/Linney re-thinking milk research 2025
Methodology
For this project, we utilised a three-stage methodology. This allowed us to explore, streamline and test concepts and messages in aisle and on pack.
We used a sample who were jointly or solely responsible for grocery shopping and classified themselves as either a dairy milk shopper or as cutting back. Milk rejectors were not included in this research, but otherwise the sample was nationally representative. We were able to split the data by retailer channels (mainstream supermarkets, discounters, convenience and premium) to identify any nuances.
Stage one
We used an ideation workshop to explore all potential communication routes and messages available for the milk market. This brainstorming involved input from Arla, Müller and AHDB.
Stage two
We used an online quantitative survey of 1599 milk shoppers to streamline and prioritise the most impactful communication routes, messages and visuals (covering 29 messages and 80 images). The survey included timed responses and a MaxDiff* to obtain a hierarchy of key communication concepts. (*MaxDiff, also known as Maximum Difference Scaling, is a market research technique used to determine the relative importance of different attributes. It is a way to prioritise preferences and understand what matters most to customers.)
Stage three
This was the consumer immersion phase, where we used an online survey of 3056 shoppers per touchpoint (in aisle and on pack) to test the strongest communication concepts from stage two but in situ. For the aisle, this involved free move navigation and exercises in three themed 3D virtual aisles, and for the pack, this involved variation testing of eight different packs (meaning 4,096 unique pack combinations were tested in total to get to the optimum).
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