Nov 16, 2016, Thanks to rapid urbanisation and rising incomes, Southeast Asia is consuming dairy at one of the fastest-growing rates in the world

“Milk is the drink of the gods,” read a US advertisement featuring the provocative basketball player Dennis Rodman in 1996. “Staying active, eating right, and drinking 3 glasses a day of lowfat or fat free milk helps you look great,” proclaimed superstar footballer David Beckham in a similar ad ten years later.

A dairy farmer carries a container of fresh milk through a barn at Pujon district in East Java, IndonesiaThe white stuff: a dairy farmer carries a container of fresh milk through a barn at Pujon district in East Java, Indonesia

The adverts, part of the ‘Got Milk?’ campaign that saw famous faces don milk moustaches alongside panegyrics on milk’s health benefits, are typical of industry marketing efforts in the West, where dairy has come to be widely seen as an important part of a nutritious, balanced diet.

In Southeast Asia, where diets have typically not included dairy, drinking milk has taken longer to catch on among the general populace – although not for a lack of effort on the part of dairy companies.

In 1915, the French brand La Petite Fermière ran a quarter-page advert in Luc Tinh Tan Van, a now-defunct Vietnamese newspaper, in which a woman remarked how healthy and plump another woman’s son looked. The mother replied that her son consumed La Petite Fermière condensed milk every day. Continue to full article