As January ends, we celebrate the incredible 250,000 people who signed up to Veganuary 2019! You can read about their huge success here. As we end on a high, we begin February with another campaign, much less widely known and much less effective: Februdairy. This campaign was created in 2018 by Dr. Jude Capper, who is involved in the dairy industry to promote their products, especially via social media to target a younger audience. It has been known for a long time that millennials are ditching dairy for a whole plethora of reasons and the dairy industry is finally waking up to counteract it – well, trying to.

Februdairy was launched with much anticipation from both sides and it was clear from the very beginning that this campaign had been taken over by vegan activists on Twitter. #Februdairy had become a place to educate members of the public on the truth behind the UK dairy industry: where these products come from and who pays the ultimate price.

Scrolling down the hashtag, you can see farmers and pro-dairy supporters sharing a “glass of the white stuff” with their breakfast, but the important part to note – the ten replies you will see from vegans promoting plant milks. It has become a place to debate and, with many influential vegans and activists on Twitter, posts can soon be shared hundreds or thousands of times. Many more times than farmer Tom’s glass of milk. The millennials have succeeded in shunning dairy yet again. This article by Plant Based News shows all the statistics from 2018’s campaign. The most commonly used words in relation to #Februdairy were ‘Vegan’, ‘Go Vegan’ and ‘Ditch Dairy’. During the campaign, the top 21 most influential accounts were all vegan accounts. Dr. Jude Capper, who created the campaign, unfortunately came in at position 22. The dairy industry’s effort was simply not strong enough to overpower the truth.

Now in 2019, the campaign is back, and vegans are ready! Most of the top tweets are already from vegan activist accounts, just a week or so in. February has become a month where we can team together to highlight the cruelty involved in the dairy industry, the health benefits of ditching dairy and how we can reduce the environmental impact by sourcing plant milks (specifically locally grown plant milks). This month will likely exceed last year’s efforts, especially from activists, and this is fantastic! For the animals, for our health and for the environment.

We cannot wait to see the dedication by activists over the next few weeks to speak up for the vulnerable members of our society – the cows and calves. We urge anyone who has not already, to ditch the dairy and choose a cruelty-free lifestyle. Choose veganism!

As always, for the animals.

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