According to the US Department of Agriculture, per-capita milk consumption has fallen nearly 30 percent since 1975, leaving industry professionals scrambling to develop new ways to market the beverage. Tom Gallagher, CEO of Dairy Management Inc., told the Wall Street Journal Tuesday that the industry “is coming to recognize this as a crisis.” The new marketing approaches include convenience-size packaging, protein-enhanced varieties, and a red, teardrop-shaped label touting the animal-based milk as “real.” The latter a tactic to derail the success of non-dairy milks, which increased in sales by 15.8 percent since 2011, according to the USDA. In October, dairy-industry leaders estimated that 100 facilities would close in California, the nation’s largest dairy-producing state, by year’s end due to the summer’s feed-crop devastation.

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