LOYAL drinkers of A2 milk have held their ground and are showing no signs of drifting back to traditional, and cheaper, white milk lines now being branded as containing the popularised A2 protein.
A2 Milk Company has reported no negative impact from the launch of a cheeky marketing push by major domestic processor Lion, which has relaunched its Pura and Dairy Farmers brands with labels that highlight conventional milk «naturally contains A2 protein».
A2’s Australian and New Zealand chief executive officer Peter Nathan said the Lion initiative was «still creating a lot of confusion», but A2’s remarkable sales growth in the past five years had not been harmed by the marketing spin.
Lion released its new milk bottle label message about a month ago, following trials in South Australia where sales jumped 4 per cent in SA in the two months after its Pura white milk products were branded with the A2 protein message.
Regular Australian milk and dairy foods contain a mix of about 60pc A2 beta-casein protein and 40pc A1 protein.
«The manner in which the A2 protein message has been miscommunicated is frustrating and Lion is not being transparent or upfront about what it’s saying,» Mr Nathan said.
«But our customers are very loyal, and they do understand the success of A2 milk is all about the lack of any A1 protein in our product,» he said.
«A lot of consumers are quite upset about what they regard as deceptive conduct.»
Branded milk processors have been losing market share since Coles supermarkets began discounting their generic house brand milk to $1 a litre in 2010, igniting a fractious retail price war and contributing to a crash in payments to farmers.
Consumer organisation Choice responded to Lion’s marketing effort by saying nothing had changed in Lion’s milk offering except the label, which it believed was deliberately meant to confuse shoppers.
Launched in 2007, A2 milk is promoted as being easier for some consumers to digest because it contains only the A2 protein.
A2 it now takes about 9pc of consumer spending on fresh milk in Australia and represents more than 5pc of total white milk sales volume.
Although the science surrounding the A2 protein has often been muddled by marketing messages and criticised as inconclusive, particularly by A2’s dairy processor rivals, the New Zealand-listed Australian-based A2 Milk Company has pointed to the first human scientific study supporting claims about the protein being easier to digest.
In a timely move amid the marketing stoush back in Australia, theEuropean Journal of Clinical Nutrition recently published research from Perth’s Curtin University, which showed people who consumed the A2 protein in blind trials were less susceptible to bloating and other stomach discomfort than those who consumed the A1 protein.
The study, funded by A2 Corporation, was the first step in clarifying some of the milk claims in the health market, said nutritionist Dr Joanna McMillan. However, more research was still needed.
«The next phase of the study is to understand what is happening at gut level,» she said.
Source: The Land
