Alternative Dairy: State of the Industry
2023; Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.; Volume: 19; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1089/ind.2023.29328.tur
ISSN1931-8421
Tópico(s)Food Waste Reduction and Sustainability
ResumoIndustrial BiotechnologyVol. 19, No. 6 Industry ReportFree AccessAlternative Dairy: State of the IndustryTurtleTree, SingaporeTurtleTree, SingaporePublished Online:15 Dec 2023https://doi.org/10.1089/ind.2023.29328.turAboutSectionsPDF/EPUB Permissions & CitationsPermissionsDownload CitationsTrack CitationsAdd to favorites Back To Publication ShareShare onFacebookXLinked InRedditEmail The Technology of Alternative DairyThe up-and-coming alternative dairy industry is chock-full of different technologies, products, and key players, all of which are geared towards the unified goal of providing the world with nutritious and sustainable alternatives to animal-derived dairy products. While the current alternative dairy landscape has the right intentions and is gaining traction, it still falls short in delivering equivalent substitutes to dairy products. Because of this, we may see that market adoption of plant-based products soon reaches a glass ceiling. To truly create alternative dairy on par with traditional dairy in taste, texture, and nutritional content, technologies like precision fermentation, and eventually cell-based milk, must be implemented. In this State of the Industry, we'll discuss what's missing from plant-based dairy, how precision fermentation can improve alternative dairy, and how TurtleTree (Singapore) plans to bring functional ingredients to alternative dairy. Consider this your guide to alternative dairy.In the last decade, alternative dairy has experienced explosive growth. More and more, consumers are swapping out their dairy milks for plant-based alternatives. In the US, dairy milk consumption has been slowly declining, while plant-based milk purchases have increased by 36% from 2013-2017.1 Some of the top reasons consumers avoid dairy include: lactose intolerance/dairy sensitivity (63%), animal cruelty issues (20%) and environmental reasons (15%).2However, let's be clear: the dairy industry is still huge and growing. The global dairy market grew 30%3 from 2005 to 2015 and is estimated to reach USD $640.8B by 2030.4 In the U.S., consumption of dairy products like cheese continues to grow.3 It's no wonder why dairy products remain a large portion of our plates. A lot of it has to do with dairy's unique taste, texture, and nutritional content. Not only does its nutritional value make dairy a staple of a well-rounded diet, but its creamy, frothy, stretchy, gooey, texture makes it desirable across a wide array of product applications: from lattes, to pizza, and even paneer. Just think of cheese's irresistible ooze as it leopards atop your favorite pizza.Plus, dairy milk is a great source of calcium, Vitamin D, and protein. So much so that the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Dietary Guidelines, 2020-2025 designates dairy as its own food group and assigns minimum amounts of macronutrients and minerals that should be included in one serving of dairy.5 This is important because, as you'll see, these Dietary Guidelines create a measuring stick against which all plant-based milks are judged and fall short. The repercussions of this nutritional inferiority extend beyond just health and consumer choices, and can actually preclude plant-based milks from inclusion in government programs where they would receive national recognition.It's easy to see how dairy's nutritional value, unique texture, and taste make it difficult to perfectly recreate, especially when competing at the same subsidized price point. However, transitioning from traditional animal-derived to alternative dairy is a crucial component to solving the current climate crisis. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that the global dairy industry contributes to 4% of all human-made greenhouse gas emissions, with methane being the primary gas emitted.6 One study found that if the global population switched to a plant-based diet, greenhouse gas emissions from food production could decrease as much as 70%.7 So you can imagine how enabling a widespread transition from animal-derived to alternative dairy would pose huge benefits to the environment.Luckily, precision fermentation and eventually cell-based milk can drastically improve the current shortcomings of plant-based products; delivering the “2nd generation” of alternative dairy that truly functions as an equivalent substitute to traditional dairy. Moreover, precision fermentation-derived ingredients like TurtleTree's recombinant bovine lactoferrin protein, “LF+”, can make the second generation of alternative dairy complete with bioactive that deliver functional benefits to help you feel your best. Reaching this second generation of alternative dairy is key to reducing animal suffering, meeting climate goals, and maximizing market adoption of alternative dairy products.And to be clear, the goal isn't to entirely replace conventional dairy. Instead, the goal is to relieve the planet of the overwhelming demand for dairy in all sorts of applications like protein powders, premade frosting, or canned soup. This way, dairy farmers can focus on making high-quality dairy products on smaller farms with happier cows that require fewer precious natural resources.Implementing innovative food production technologies is central to meeting all these goals. So what better way to start than to set the scene with an overview of plant-based, precision fermentation, and cell-based technologies?The TechThere are three pillars of alternative dairy (and protein) technology: plant-based, fermentation-derived, and cell-based.Perhaps you've already tried plant-based products from the grocery store and found your favorites. Or, maybe you've experimented with every plant-based cheese in your grocery aisle by now and none hold up to your late-night quesadilla cravings. We'd consider these the “first generation” of alternative dairy. Plant-based products are defined as products made from plants that act as alternatives to animal-based products.8 Common ingredients for plant-based milks include oats, almonds, rice, soy, or coconut. To create plant-based milks, nuts or grains are soaked in water and then blended and strained (Fig. 1). Plant-based is a relatively simple technology in the sense that although many plant-based milk companies have their own proprietary ways to blend and strain, fundamentally no new biotechnology is implemented. Examples of plant-based dairy include Almond Breeze's almond milk or Oatly's oat milk.Fig. 1. The process of plant-based milk.Existing plant-based milks are great because they are much more climate-friendly and cater to those who avoid dairy for whatever reason, but they are still lacking in a number of areas that may stagnate their growth: mainly nutrition, sensory properties, and price. Bloomberg recently criticized the plant-based industry for “flopping” by failing to deliver on these same characteristics.9 Later, we will break down how plant-based dairy currently falls short.There are broadly two types of fermentation-derived technologies: biomass and precision fermentation. Because biomass fermentation has yet to be used to produce dairy alternatives, we will focus this section on Precision Fermentation. Precision fermentation enlists microorganisms to produce animal-derived ingredients (Fig. 2).Fig. 2. The process of precision fermentation.It's important to distinguish that Precision Fermentation technology creates ingredients rather than whole products. Precision fermentation-derived ingredients can be added to plant-based products to create hybrid products. Perfect Day's Cowabunga and Bored Cow milks are examples of hybrid dairy products. They are plant-based milk supplemented with Perfect Day's precision fermentation-derived whey protein. By adding precision fermentation ingredients, these hybrid milks better mimic traditional dairy – both in nutritional value and sensory properties like taste and texture. On top of that, precision fermentation-derived dairy proteins like TurtleTree's LF+ can deliver health benefits beyond the nutritional value of plant-based dairy by utilizing the wonder of bioactive.Later, we will dive into how Precision Fermentation can deliver the “2nd generation” of alternative dairy now, putting animal-free dairy on par with animal-derived dairy. And, we'll demonstrate how TurtleTree provides value to this 2nd generation of alternative dairy by focusing on niche dairy bioactive protein ingredients like lactoferrin.Animal cell-based (or cultivated) technology also has the potential to deliver the “2nd generation” of alternative dairy, however, realistically it will take some time for this technology to scale and become accessible. That's why here at TurtleTree we're still working on the complicated process of creating cell-based milk, but our first products are precision fermentation-derived bioactive dairy proteins like LF+.Cell-based technology10 makes genuine animal milk or meat by cultivating animal cell lines to replicate the animal product (Fig. 3). In the case of producing cell-based cow's milk, mammary cells are harvested from the cow udder and then proliferated in a bioreactor that mimics the udder. The cells are arranged in the bioreactor atop a fine mesh. Then they're fed nutrients and lactation hormones to induce milk secretion. Depending on the exact method, once the cells produce milk, the milk might trickle through the mesh to the other side of the filter. This helps separate the milk from the cells as the first step of purifying the milk to become the final product.Fig. 3. The process of cell-based milk.Cultivated milk is the most promising technology to recreate whole milk that is very similar to traditional milk. However, the price point for cultivated products will remain high for some time until R&D has figured out how best to scale this complex technology. One interim solution to lower the price during this period is to create cultivated plant-based hybrids products (Fig. 4). Companies like Eat Just who are producing cultivated meat have taken this approach to improve cost and scale by creating products that contain cultivated meat supplemented with plant-based analogue. In the future, companies making cell-based milk may choose to do the same, creating milk products that are a mixture of cell-based and plant-based milks.Fig. 4. The technology of alternative dairy.Cell-based is the only technology with the ability to produce milk in its entirety. This cell-based milk could then be made into cheese, ice cream, yogurt, or other dairy products that would be indistinguishable from traditional dairy products – in taste, texture, and nutritional value. Thus, cell-based technology makes it possible to enjoy that grin-worthy cheese pull guilt-free, because it's made entirely animal-free. In addition to TurtleTree, one company working on cell-based cow's milk is Montreal-based Opalia.We could consider plant-based dairy the “first generation” of alternative dairy, while precision fermentation and cell-based technologies can usher in the “2nd generation” of alternative dairy.What's Wrong with Plant-Based Dairy?Plant-based dairy struggles to compete with traditional dairy in nutritional content, texture, and taste. These shortcomings impede market acceptance of alternative dairy by limiting their widespread use and product applications. Without employing novel technologies like precision fermentation to improve these aspects of alternative dairy, plant-based dairy may hit a glass ceiling.PLANT-BASED DAIRY LACKS ADEQUATE NUTRITIONAL VALUEOne of the current criticisms of plant-based milks is that they fail to deliver the same nutritional value as their dairy counterparts (Fig. 5). Remember USDA's Dietary Guidelines for milk substitutes that we mentioned earlier?5 Currently, of all the plant-based milks, only soy-based milks fortified with calcium, Vitamin A, and Vitamin D meet the nutritional requirements to be considered substitutes. All other plant-based milks are nutritionally inferior.Fig. 5. Nutritional content comparison.For alternative dairy, achieving nutritional equivalence is not only important for market adoption at the individual level, so that consumers intake alternative dairy products as part of their well-balanced diet, but it's also important for acceptance in government programs. Nutritional equivalence gives government programs like the Women Infant and Children and school lunch programs in the U.S. reason to treat alternative dairy as interchangeable with traditional dairy.And because of nutrition, many government programs have yet to adopt alternative dairy. It's also the dairy industry's most compelling argument for reserving labeling terms like “milk” exclusively for dairy milk. So, improving the nutritional content of plant-based milks is critical to the success of alternative dairy. Later we'll explore how precision fermentation can solve this.Dairy milk is not only a great source of protein, energy, and fat, but it's also a great source of vitamins and minerals like Vitamin C, Vitamin B12, calcium, and phosphorus. And, it's composed in a way that our bodies are able to digest a lot of those nutrients easily. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) uses a protein ranking standard called the Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS).11 The DIAAS is a digestibility index that accounts for how much protein content the body is actually able to absorb through the small intestine and therefore how well the protein contributes to the body's amino acid requirements.Milk protein, for example, has a digestibility index of 145% for adults, meaning that all the protein from cow's milk can be digested and absorbed by the body.12 Almond milk, on the other hand, has a DIAAS of only 39% for adults. Soy milk, which is generally recognized as the next best nutritionally to cow's milk, has a digestibility score of 107.6% This digestibility score shows just how far plant-based milks have to go to reach the same protein digestibility as dairy milk.In general, animal-derived ingredients have higher digestibility scores compared to plant-based ingredients. Ways to improve digestibility of plant proteins include mycelial fermentation (a method that the company MycoTechnology is pioneering),13 which generates bioactives, or supplementation with probiotics,14 which changes the gut microbiota to help absorb the amino acids from plant proteins.While one approach is to aid with plant protein digestibility, another is to instead replicate animal proteins for use in plant-based products. This is exactly what precision fermentation promises: to create animal-free animal proteins that are easily digestible for inclusion in any food or drink.ALTERNATIVE DAIRY LABELINGThe labeling challenges that the alternative dairy industry face today are directly related to nutritional content. In fact, one of the main arguments of Wisconsin's Senator Tammy Baldwin's Dairy Pride Act (called the Defending Against Imitations and Replacements of Yogurt, Milk, and Cheese To Promote Regular Intake of Dairy Everyday Act) is that plant-based milks “do not have an overall nutritional content similar to real milk and that most have significantly less protein than real milk and are not always fortified with calcium and vitamin D”.15This bill, which was introduced to congress in April of 2021 but has yet to pass, attempts to block plant-based milks from bearing the label “milk”. It argues that consumers will either confuse plant-based milks as being nutritionally equivalent substitutes to dairy milks or will think that plant-based milks do in fact contain milk because of the use of the term “milk”. If plant-based milks were nutritionally equivalent to dairy milk, however, this bill would hardly have legs to stand on.In response to this bill and feeling pressure from both the dairy and alternative dairy industries, the FDA released their own Draft Guidance for Industry on the labeling of plant-based milks.16 While FDA is careful to limit this Draft Guidance only to plant-based milks and not other alternative dairy products, the Guidance explains FDA's stance that plant-based milks should be permitted to use the term “milk”, demonstrating evidence that the consumers are not confused by plant-based milks. The Guidance does, however, echo the Dairy Pride Act in calling out plant-based milks' nutritional deficiency.The Agency suggests that alternative dairy companies include disclaimers on their packaging to indicate how these products stack up nutritionally compared to dairy milk. For example, the Guidance suggests that packaging bears language like “Contains a lower amount of potassium than milk”. While this may be an interim solution to help consumers make educated purchases, the better play for alternative dairy is to create products that compete or even out-compete dairy milk on the nutrition front.ALTERNATIVE DAIRY GOVERNMENT PROGRAMSSimilar to labeling, inclusion of alternative dairy in government programs hinges directly on its nutritional equivalence to dairy. Given the scale of government food programs like Women Infants and Children and school lunches, these programs provide new foods the exposure to quickly become household staples. The Women Infant and Children (WIC) program, for example, accounted for an estimated 56% of U.S. infant formula in 201817 and covered over 6 million participants in 2020.18 In November 2022, WIC proposed a rule change to enable substitution of plant-based milks in place of dairy milks in their food packages.19To do this, however, alternative dairy products would need to meet the nutritional requirements set by the USDA Dietary Guidelines for milk. This proposed rule change indicates the U.S. government's simultaneous willingness to usher in alternative dairy and hesitancy towards adopting alternative dairy given the nutritional shortcomings.School lunch programs are another avenue by which alternative dairy could gain huge market share and become household staples. Recently, the California state government earmarked $100 million20 for securing plant-based ingredients for school lunches through the Child Nutrition Act of 2022, AB558.21Maggie Neola, a dietician with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, specifically cited the need for access to health meals that promote overall wellness and support children's immune systems.22 Luckily, precision fermentation and TurtleTree can help with this too! Our first bioactive protein, lactoferrin (LF+),23 provides immune support. Other states are working on similar legislation. The New York Senate has drafted S996 which requires schools to provide plant-based options for those who request it.24 Similarly, Illinois has passed House Bill 4089 which requires school districts to provide plant-based options that “complies with federal nutritional mandates”.25On top of individual health considerations, alternative dairy's current shortcomings in nutritional value have far reaching implications in this nascent industry's success and therefore the planet's health. What plant-based dairy lacks, though, precision fermentation can provide in surplus. Improved nutrition is just one of the ways in which precision fermentation can bring about the next generation of alternative dairy.PLANT-BASED DAIRY STRUGGLES TO RECREATE THE EXPERIENCE OF TRADITIONAL DAIRYEven if alternative dairy products are better for the environment, they still need to be craveable to achieve market adoption. A survey by the International Food Information Council (IFIC) found that taste was the most important factor for 82% of consumers, followed by price (66%) and health/nutrition (58%).26 Sustainability accounted for only 31%. Regardless of how well-intentioned consumers are about buying climate-friendly foods, taste still prevails when standing in front of the supermarket aisle.One study of plant-based cheeses found that only 32% or respondents thought plant-based cheese tasted as good as regular cheese, and 34% of respondents disagreed.27 The remaining people surveyed were indifferent. Alternative dairy has a long way to go in competing with traditional dairy on taste!Texture is another important factor where plant-based dairy products fall short. A few chief complaints: they often lack the creaminess of dairy milk or the stretch of cheese. Texture is important for mouthfeel and general satisfaction with a food, but it also influences product applications. The extent to which a plant-based product can recreate the stretch and meltability of cheese dictates whether you could add that product to a frozen pizza. The ability to mimic milk's frothing determines whether it can be used in a latte.Many plant-based cheeses and some ice creams currently use gums or carrageenan to thicken and firm the texture. Carrageenan is an extract found in red seaweed and it's a hot topic of debate. While it's been used by the food industry for centuries, some claim it contributes to gastrointestinal inflammation. The FDA did review carrageenan, however, and continues to list the ingredient as “Generally Recognized as Safe”.28 Either way, it would be great if alternative dairy could better mimic the texture of dairy by including ingredients naturally found in dairy. The good news is that's just what precision fermentation offers.As we've just covered, the first generation of alternative dairy struggles to compete with and replace traditional dairy because of its shortcomings in nutritional value, taste, and texture. Creating animal-free dairy ingredients via precision fermentation, though, can solve this problem and bring about the 2nd generation of alternative dairy, powered by innovative technology and filled with empathy and care for people and the planet. Later, we'll explain how precision fermentation can mitigate the shortcomings of plant-based dairy and unlock a new level of alternative dairy.TurtleTree's Role Using Precision FermentationPrecision fermentation can produce the second generation of alternative dairy now while cell-based milk technology improves and scales. And those big factors like nutritional content and texture where plant-based dairy falls short? Precision fermentation can deliver on all those fronts and more. Where precision fermentation adds value in the dairy industry lies in its ability to create animal-free ingredients that make dairy healthier and tastier without compromising the planet's wellbeing. As for Turtletree, we're focused on delivering bioactive dairy proteins that have health benefits even beyond nutrition, enabling the second generation of alternative dairy to be even better for you than traditional dairy.29PRECISION FERMENTATION PROVIDES SUSTAINABLE, ANIMAL-FREE DAIRY INGREDIENTSThe biggest advantage of precision fermentation is that it can deliver animal proteins in an animal-free way. Because dairy cows have such a large impact on the environment,30 creating dairy ingredients without cows will significantly aid in climate solutions. Perfect Day performed a life cycle assessment of their precision fermentation-derived whey protein and found that if consumers were to switch entirely from milk protein to animal-free whey protein, this would save 246 million tonnes of CO2 emissions, 18,600 billion gallons of water, and 75 billion MJ of energy. Of course, even switching out milk protein for animal-free proteins just some of the time would have a huge impact.From a resource and land use perspective, precision fermentation requires significantly less land31 to grow food compared to crops traditionally used for plant-based dairy like soy, almonds, or oats. Just think, instead of using thousands of acres of land to produce cow feed and even more room to house those dairy cows, milk could instead be made in a food production facility with tiny microbes doing the heavy lifting. Precision fermentation, then, can free up resources two fold: by reducing the number of dairy cows on the planet and the crops needed to feed them. At the same time, fermentation facilities can be designed to minimize water usage and run on clean electricity. That's just one way that precision fermentation can make the food system more efficient.Speaking of efficiency, here at TurtleTree, we like to pack a big punch into small things. That's one of the many reasons why we chose to make lactoferrin23 as our first bioactive dairy ingredient. Lactoferrin can produce numerous health benefits even though it's naturally present in milk in lower concentrations (0.5mg/L)32 compared to other dairy proteins like whey which has a concentration of 6.3g/L or casein with a concentration of 29.5 g/L in cow's milk.33Moreover, lactoferrin supplements already on the market have a serving size of 250 mg, whereas serving sizes for whey and casein are closer to 25 grams and 34 grams, respectively (Fig. 6. ). So, 50 grams of lactoferrin goes a lot farther than 50 grams of whey or casein would, with the 50g of lactoferrin producing nearly 100x more servings than 50g of casein or whey. This comes in handy in the production process because it means we can serve more folks lactoferrin with much less manufacturing capacity and raw materials. Not only is lactoferrin perfect for maximizing space and earth's precious resources, it's also great for your health too.Fig. 6. Serving size comparison.PRECISION FERMENTATION CAN IMPROVE THE NUTRITIONAL CONTENT AND HEALTH BENEFITS OF DAIRYAs mentioned previously, one of the major concerns of plant-based milks is that they struggle to compete nutritionally with dairy milk, especially in protein content. Currently, only soy milk fortified with Vitamin A, Vitamin D, and calcium is considered nutritionally equivalent to dairy milk by the USDA Dietary Guidelines.34 However, those numbers aren't as black and white as some would have you think. In actuality, even dairy milk struggles to meet those USDA nutritional requirements.The irony is that most dairy milks in the US are fortified with Vitamin A and D35 to become the nutritious staple you know and love. Without Vitamin A and Vitamin D fortification, a cup of 2% milk fails to meet the Dietary Guidelines for dairy milk substitutes. An unfortified cup of 2% milk contains just 251 IU of Vitamin A and 2.46 IU of Vitamin D (50% and 2%, respectively, of what's required by the USDA Dietary Guidelines for milk substitutes).36 This begs the question, how were these USDA Dietary Guidelines established and what do they mean for the future of the dairy industry?What's more, current methods to produce Vitamin A, like what would be added to dairy milk, rely on synthesis from petroleum-derived substrates, further increasing dairy milk's environmental impact.37 Precision fermentation can change this. In fact, it can aid both dairy and plant-based milks in becoming more nutritious and sustainable. Recently, DSM has announced the launch of Vitamin A produced from yeast.38 Others too have demonstrated the role that precision fermentation can play in vitamin production.37One doctoral dissertation conducted at the University of Helsinki reported the ability to produce significant levels of vitamin B12 via fermentation of wheat flour, whole-wheat flour, and wheat bran.39 This discovery is particularly exciting because Vitamin B12 is often a vitamin lacking in plant-based diets. These breakthroughs demonstrate precision fermentation's ability to fortify dairy milk, plant-based milk, and any food imaginable, with sustainably produced nutrients. Precision fermentation can be used to produce both vitamins and animal proteins to increase the nutritional value of foods without further straining the environment.Rather than from vitamin and mineral counts, the benefits of dairy milk largely come from milk proteins.33 Milk proteins are classified into three types: wheys, caseins, and mucins. Whey proteins in particular are an excellent source of protein and are often added to other foods like protein bars. Traditionally, whey proteins are separated from the cheese curds during the cheese making process and can then be dried for inclusion in other foods as a powder.40 With precision fermentation, though, whey can be made without the cow and without making the rest of the milk. Subtypes of whey protein include beta-lactoglobulin and alpha-lactalbumin. Sounds familiar? These are the types of whey proteins that companies like Perfect Day, Remilk, and All G Foods are producing via precision fermentation.Adding animal-free whey proteins to plant-based milks is one way to increase their protein content, helping them to meet the protein levels seen in dairy milk.Figure 7 shows how a plant-based milk fortified with precision fermentation-derived whey protein stacks up to dairy milk and a non-fortified plant-based milk. Supplementation with precision fermentation-derived whey more than doubles the protein content of the plant-based milk so that it's nutritionally equivalent to dairy milk.Fig. 7. Nutritional content comparison.Moreover, remember the Digestible Indispensable Amino Acid Score (DIAAS) we mentioned earlier, and how in general animal proteins have higher digestibility scores compared to plant proteins? Incorporating animal proteins made via precision fermentation not only increases the total protein content of plant-based dairy, but also makes this protein more usable to the body.One study compared the DIAAS scores of different proteins and found that whey protein concentrate had a DIAAS of 107 while pea protein concentrate had a DIAAS of just 62—almost half that of whey protein.41 This means that a plant-based milk with whey protein renders a much larger amount of utilizable protein to the body than a plant-based milk with pea protein would, even if both milks contain the same amount of protein in grams. This has huge implications in helping people meet their protein requirements, all while on an animal-free diet.There's more to healthy foods than just nutritional content thou
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