Shaping the future of dairy with precision fermentation
Milk has long been associated with cows, but a revolutionary shift is underway. Precision fermentation is redefining how dairy proteins are produced. By utilizing microorganisms instead of animals, it offers an innovative solution to meet the growing global demand for dairy proteins. It also addresses a key challenge of 100% plant-based products – potentially overcoming taste limitations to meet consumer expectations.
Precision fermentation is not about replacing traditional dairy; it complements it. As global demand for dairy proteins rises and milk supply decreases, precision fermentation can provide a consistent supply of sustainable milk protein. However, moving from laboratory innovation to everyday food products involves overcoming challenges across the supply chain, from scaling production to product and market development (Berendsen, 2024).
The same, but different: unlocking new opportunities
While precision fermentation can produce proteins identical to those found in milk, the resulting ingredients differ from their conventional dairy counterparts. For example, precision fermentation can produce pure single proteins – like the major whey protein β-lactoglobulin (BLG) (Hoppenreij, 2024), or specific types of casein (Antuma et al., 2025). In contrast, conventional milk is a blend of proteins, along with macronutrients such as fats, salts, and lactose. Even highly refined dairy ingredients like whey protein concentrate, milk protein concentrate or sodium caseinate are blends of dairy proteins, fats, and sugars.
This fundamental difference in composition requires product developers to rethink how they use these novel ingredients, presenting challenges and exciting opportunities for creating future foods.
Rewriting recipes for tomorrow’s food
Replacing conventional dairy with cow-free dairy ingredients opens up opportunities for creatively re-designing dairy products. Dairy ingredients are crucial for the texture and sensory attributes of many food products, such cheese, yogurt, and protein bars.
Achieving the familiar textures – such as the creamy, smooth texture of yogurt, the stretchiness of cheese, or the chewiness of protein bars – requires more than just swapping out ingredients. This is where Research and Development (R&D) plays a key role. Food developers need to understand how to create new recipes, combining novel proteins, alternative fats, and carbohydrates, while tweaking processing parameters to meet customer expectations. Understanding the unique functional properties of precision fermentation ingredients could even provide new opportunities, such as improved textural benefits or lower cost-in-use. For example, New Culture reports that they can produce mozzarella using precision fermentation casein while requiring 50% less casein in the recipe (New Culture, 2024).
From lab experiment to market success
Understanding the role of precision-fermented ingredients in a final product recipe is just one piece of the puzzle. Equally important are educating the market about their potential, addressing concerns, and developing business solutions. This includes demonstrating how these novel ingredients perform in real product applications. Our Dairy Food Studio is designed specifically for this purpose, featuring state-of-the-art food application equipment.
Meeting customer and consumer expectations is key to achieving market success. Testing these novel formulations through industrial trials ensures that the products meet customer needs and perform as expected from lab-scale experiments. Our R&D Team guides these processes to reach the desired results.
In this context, trust is essential for building successful innovation partnerships (Harvard Business Review, 2022). It fosters collaboration, enabling partners to overcome challenges together and navigate the complexities of bringing new products to market. Open innovation, transparency, and a growth mindset further strengthen these relationships, accelerating the market entry of novel foods. Through co-creation with suppliers, customers, equipment manufacturers and stakeholders across the value chain, we cultivate an ecosystem that not only facilitates overcoming challenges but also drives collective growth, expanding market opportunities and maximizing the impact of innovation.
A collaborative vision for the future of dairy
At Interfood, we believe that innovation thrives through collaboration. Precision fermentation offers a unique opportunity to revolutionize food production. Whether you are a product developer, marketer, researcher or investor, your expertise matters. Are you looking for formulations including alternative proteins, but plant-based options cannot fulfill your application needs? Are you seeking guidance on product application for these innovative ingredients? Are you exploring ways to educate the market or consumers about these novel precision-fermented ingredients? Or are you an investor looking to close the supply-demand gap in dairy production?
Let’s connect to tackle these challenges together. By combining our knowledge and expertise, we can bridge the gap between tradition and innovation, creating novel solutions for a sustainable future of dairy.
