CAN COCONUT MILK REPLACE COW’S MILK?

 CAN COCONUT MILK REPLACE COW’S MILK?

Dear Mr. President: I am writing you about the problem of malnutrition among children in our country, a problem that has been identified to be the cause of stunting among them. In that connection, I have come across studies that have established the fact that one of the solutions to the problem of stunting is to feed our children with cow’s milk. However, it turned out that that is not a practical solution, because we are not producing enough cow’s milk locally, and as a matter of fact, the data shows that our country is importing most of our milk supplies.

Meanwhile, perhaps due to globalization, our local market is now swamped with non-dairy milk substitutes such as almond milk, cashew milk and soybean milk. As I understand it, we are not producing enough almonds, cashews and soybeans to be able to produce milk out of those, so that is out of the question, there is however one source of non-dairy milk that we seem to have overlooked, even if we have an abundant supply of it. I am referring Mr. President to coconut milk beverage (CMB).

No, I am not talking about evaporated filled milk (EFM) that is only supposedly used for baking and cooking. I am actually talking about CMB for drinking as a non-dairy milk substitute, not only as a beverage, but also as a coffee creamer, just like the way almond milks, cashew milks and soybean milks are consumed. By the way, Mr. President, there are some countries that have banned EFM for human consumption, but to be clear, CMB is not the same product as EFM.

Despite the bans imposed in some countries, there is still a global market for EFM, as it is still used for baking and cooking. The good news, however, is that there is a growing market for CMB, and the even better news is that it could also be used for baking and cooking. According to Microsoft Copilot, the global market for CMB has grown to about 6.3 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to about 21.7 billion in 2033, with a compound growth rate (CAGR) of 13.2%.

Although there is a lot of money to be made if we could just capture a small share of that projected global CMB market, I am more interested in the potential of CMB to solve the triple problems of hunger, malnutrition and stunting in our local population. Can you imagine what will happen if not only the children but everyone in our country could drink milk that is just as good as cow’s milk but cheaper? And can you imagine how that will make our coconut farmers rich?

Mr. President, I believe that to be able to fully tap the potential of CMB, there should be a task force or a joint committee to make the DA, the DOST, the DTI, the DOH and the DFA to work together. That should include the FNRI for product development, the DCP for packaging design, the FAD for product testing. Somehow, someway you could also include the CHED, so that it could mobilize the SUCs. Who knows? Together with the other coconut-based products, CMB could bring the Philippines out of poverty? IKE SENERES/09-23-24