[molloy]

A lot of plant milks are unsweetened, and there is a high and growing demand for these products—yes these companies want to make money, but it's not as if they were manufacturing the demand, they're merely capitalizing upon it.

Better yet is to make one's own oat milk; I agree that they're exorbitantly expensive, albeit (here in the US) the dairy industry is immensely subsidized and so we consumers don't see the true cost of our cow's milk.

[Spooky23]

Subsidies for milk benefit processors, not producers. Producers today are going bankrupt left and right as they are forced to sell at fixed prices unless they go direct to consumer.

It's all the same problem. Allowing a cartel of dairy processors to control to production and delivery of dairy products is equivalent to allowing a cartel of producers (in the case of almonds) and big food is the same.

All benefit from extensive subsidy (that corn syrup isn't market-based), with the added risk of food security issues, especially for nut milks that are exclusively sourced from a few counties in California.

[molloy]

Oh, I was bringing up the price in comparison to the price of plant milks from a consumer's standpoint—while plant milks seemingly have a high markup from raw materials to product (transportation and storage costs aside), our perception of what makes it expensive has an unrealistic anchor in the subsidized cost of cow's milk. Paying $12 for a gallon of cow's milk vs. $5 for a gallon of oat milk changes the picture a bit.