Is There A Silk Soy Milk Shortage?

 I am writing this post as of May 2021. I drink soymilk regularly. I love the stuff! I grew up drinking dairy milk, and I drank plenty of it, but ever since I switched to Silk Soymilk I can't see myself ever going back to dairy. Dairy milk tastes sour to me now. Soy milk is delicious and sweet. I think it tastes a little bit like marshmallows.

Soymilk was at one time a fringe, niche product that you could only find in specialty health food stores. That has changed in a big way. I'm not sure what exactly had people switching over to buying soymilk, but it was happening in large enough numbers that Silk soymilk started being stocked on the shelves of mainstream and big chain grocery stores. I've even seen it in convenience stores/gas stations.

Buying soymilk was no burden at all. I could buy it at the same place and the same time as all of my other groceries. But recently I've been finding the Silk section empty in the dairy coolers.

I usually shop at Target, but when they have been out I have even gone to Cub Foods, Hy-Vee, and Walmart. I do all of that driving to get to all of the stores in my town and they are usually all out. All of the other plant-based dairy-alternative milks are in stock. Almond milk, cashew milk, coconut milk, hemp milk, pea protein milk, oat milk, etc. It just seems to be Silk brand products that are out.

I am in Minnesota in the suburbs south of the Twin Cities, and it is starting to seem like a regular happening. I could see a random delay in a shipment or a poorly place order by store employees explaining why it would be sold out on rare occasion, but it seems like it must be an issue with Silk because of how often and how widespread the shortage is.

I looked online and found a Reddit thread where someone asked if there was a Silk soymilk shortage in the USA in 2021, and people from all around the country were sharing the same experience: empty shelves. People in New York, Colorado, Texas, and more were finding no soymilk in their local grocery stores. Some of the redditors said they had resorted to ordering it from Amazon.

I haven't gotten to that point yet. It seems like I can usually wait a day or two and return to the store and there will be some more on the shelf to buy. But then the next regular grocery shopping trip I make it will be out of stock again.

I looked at the Facebook account for Silk, and it looks like people comment on all of their posts with questions about shortages and complaints about how their products are always out of stock in stores in their area. I don't know what the underlying issue is, but there must be one.

If plenty of people want to buy the product, then there is demand, and Silk just needs to produce the product to meet the demand. There must be a problem with production or transportation.

I have tried to buy other plant milks in lieu of soy milk, but I think they mostly taste bad. I would have to try to drink those milks, and I would be making a sacrifice in doing it. Drinking soy milk is a pleasure.

To the people at Silk - Please find a way to even out the supply of soymilk so that it is consistently on the shelves of grocery stores.

If anyone reading this knows why there seems to be a soymilk shortage, I would love to hear your ideas in the comments!

Related Post: Can you use soy milk as infant formula?

Comments

  1. I’m in the St Louis area and haven’t been able to find chocolate soymilk in months and vanilla is hit or miss. I’m not sure what’s going on.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was wondering the same thing so I decided to take a minute to look online and see what I could find. First thing I saw was this article from Organic Consumers Association. What I gather is that stores have quit buying from Silk because of a boycott due to 1) Silk not using soybeans from domestic farmers, but rather using Chinese soybeans, and 2) Silk using unsafe chemicals in the process of some of their products. Here is the link: https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/why-oca-calling-boycott-silk-soymilk

    ReplyDelete
  3. I called Silk and was told they would have it ready in September and to ask the store Dairy Manager to order it. Fred Meyer told me that they have had it on order but can't seem to get it. I'm on the Oregon coast.

    ReplyDelete

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