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Abstract
Production and consumption of dairy alternative beverages in the United States has been on the rise as per capita consumption of fluid milk continues to fall. Almond milk and soymilk are the fastest growing categories in the U.S. dairy alternative marketplace. Using household-level purchase data from 2011 Nielsen Homescan panel and tobit econometric procedure, the conditional and unconditional own-price, cross-price and income elasticities for soymilk and almond milk will be estimated. Income, age, employment status, education level, race, ethnicity, region and presence of children are significant drivers affecting the demand for dairy alternative beverages, such as almond milk and soy milk. This paper investigates the growth of the dairy alternative beverage market in the United States and its implications for dairy farmer welfare.