Editor's note: This article is from WeChat public number "love Faner" (ID: ifanr), the author Wu Zhiqi.
When I was a kid, adults would say that you need to drink more milk to be as tall as foreigners. I don't know if this is still popular with parents today, but it is certain that Americans are drinking less and less milk.
On the one hand, since the 1970s, nutrition experts have questioned the dairy industry for over-hyping the nutritional value of milk; on the other hand, plant-based alternative beverages such as oatmeal, soy, and almond milks are becoming more and more available, offering consumers a variety of choices.
▲ Oatly, the oat milk made famous by baristas, is the hottest alternative drink of the moment, image via Coffee 'n Clothes
Interestingly, while more people are opting for plant-based drinks, they still can't stay away from dairy products like cheese and yogurt because their plant-based alternatives don't taste nearly as good as the 'real thing'.
Just as 'artificial meat' startups are trying to make meat in an 'animal-free' way, there is a group of startups that are heading towards the goal of 'real dairy products' that are 'not about cows'.
No cows, microbes
Just as a cow eats a plant and produces milk, it turns out that microbial communities can eat plants and then produce milk. That's all we do.
Ryan Pandya says he co-founded the company Perfect Day with his partner Perumal Gandhi, both of whom are vegetarians.
▲ Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, image via CNBC
Strictly speaking, what Pandya says the microbes produce is not milk, but a protein called whey.
This is one of the proteins that gives dairy products that special texture, while the other is 'casein'. Once the whey is obtained, Perfect Day then blends it with fats, carbohydrates, calcium and phosphates to create a range of different ice cream flavors.
▲ Perfect Day three flavors of ice cream, photo from The Spoon
Before sampling it, author Paul Shapiro joked that "if it's fat + sugar in a frozen dessert, it can't be that bad," but when he compared Perfect Day to other plant-based milk ice creams, he realized there was a real difference:
That (Perfect Day's) chocolate ice-cream ball leaves the spoon the same way a good ice-cream does. When I put it in my mouth, it melted the right way too ...... When I had other ice-creams made from plant milks, I realized that the latter really didn't have that creamy-like silky texture.
On the other hand, New Culture is making 'dairy-free' cheese in a similar way. They cultivate microorganisms that produce casein, which gives the mozzarella cheese its stretch and texture.
▲ Mozzarella made by New Culture, photo from The New York Times
Inja Radman, the founder of New Culture, told the New York Times that they had conducted double-blind tests: 'We got a very positive response'.
While basically the same in terms of technical principles, the two companies have very different business development plans.
New Culture does hope to provide consumers with tasty and 'vegan' mozzarella in the future, but Perfect Day, which has already produced a limited run of 1,000 ice creams, is not ultimately aiming to sell dairy products to consumers, but rather 'animal-free' whey to large corporations.
According to statistics, the United States is the largest exporter of whey-containing products, with sales in this sector reaching $10 billion last year and forecast to grow at a rate of 6% per year until 2023, which is the market Perfect Day is targeting.
▲ Image from Unplash by Markus Spiske
Perfect Day claims that they have produced one metric ton of whey in the lab so far, which is still far from the 200,000 metric tons consumed by U.S. consumers in a year.
When you create something that already exists, there is already an anchored price in the market. The key in making something new with new technology is that you have to get the price of the product into the acceptable category.
Victoria de la Huerga, Vice President of US agricultural giant Archer Daniels Midland ("ADM"), says. Last year, ADM invested in Perfect Day and will help them find ways to reduce the cost of making whey.
And in Oakland, the nonprofit Real Vegan Cheese has brought together a group of biohacking enthusiasts who are also developing "real vegan cheeses" by cultivating flora, and have open-sourced the recipe.
▲ Real Vegan Cheese member, photo from Wired
Real Vegan Cheese wants other enthusiasts to be able to make these cheeses at home, in the same way that the average person can make regular cheese at home.
A story that hasn't been told yet.
Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods are probably no strangers to Lovefan readers. Both of these companies create 'vegan meat' that is similar in flavor and nutrition to real meat, but made up purely of plants, by combining various plant proteins and fats.
Their story is simple - it's possible to eat 'meat' without slaughtering animals and polluting the environment (it tastes and is just as nutritious), and it's in line with the 'eat less meat' health trend.
▲ Impossible Food official website
But these dairy products grown in a lab are a little different.
First of all, consumers are likely to freak out as soon as they see the words 'genetically modified (GMO)'. The flora used by these companies above are genetically modified to produce compliant proteins.
▲ The principles of making dairy products in the lab are basically the same, image from Connections
Some may find this intimidating, however the cheese manufacturing industry has been using this for decades.
The key to being able to turn milk into cheese lies in a special enzyme. This enzyme can be found in the stomachs of unweaned dairy cows, so the only way to get these enzymes is to slaughter them. Later, dairy companies genetically modified bacteria to secrete this this enzyme in place of the traditional slaughter for the enzyme. Now, most cheeses are made with these enzymes.
▲ Photo from CBC
Unlike what I can explain in a few paragraphs today, lab dairy companies may have to use dozens of times more effort to convince the public (although Impossible Food also uses hemoglobin produced by genetically engineered flora, the perception is more 'meat made from plants').
Second, identity anxiety - is it a dairy product or not?
▲ Image from Story Block
On a molecular level structure, these colonies make the exact same proteins that are found in milk. So much so that when Perfect Day launched their ice cream, the authorities asked them to label the packaging 'contains milk' as this could be harmful to people who are allergic to milk (but not lactose). And people who already find dairy unhealthy will only choose plant-based alternatives.
At the same time, they may not always meet the FDA's definition of a specific dairy product.
For example, Perfect Day's ice cream cannot be called "ice cream" because the FDA defines that a product must contain at least 10% of milk fat from cows in order to be called "ice cream". So, those ice creams ended up being called "frozen dairy desserts".
▲ Perfect Day This Ice Cream Can't Be Called Ice Cream in the U.S. Photo from The New York Times
So it's a bit of an awkward identity.
To a certain extent they are indeed just like dairy products made from milk, meaning that customers who want to eat a vegan diet will give up when they see the 'contains milk' label, and at the same time they can't be 'called' real dairy products.
Another possibility is that when it comes to food and drink, people care more about both taste and price.
"Lab Dairy" could be here and you wouldn't even know it.
When we choose our food, what are we really choosing?
The following survey data spanning 10 years points out that taste and price have always been at the forefront of people's minds when it comes to purchasing food and drinks, and if it can be gained by 'no-kill' on top of that, then that's certainly a plus.
Still, for most people, the chances of researching all the principles behind the making of everything they eat are slim.
Now that these laboratory dairy products have a clear advantage over plant-based alternatives in terms of taste, the next step is to address the issues of cost reduction and mass production, which is the current focus of both New Culture and Perfect Day. Once that's solved, they too may become the new norm, just like the 'lab enzymes' that 'saved' dairy cows.
While these lab-created dairy products may not seem as sensory stimulating as 'artificial meat' (at least through the screen you and I can still watch 'artificial meat' 'sizzle' on the skillet and 'bleed' when it's cut up), their impact on our lives could be much greater.
▲ Impossible Food hamburger meat that 'bleeds', image via Business Insider
Remember when Perfect Day positioned itself as a 'whey supplier'?
They hope to work with many food processing companies in the future by licensing them to use this whey in products such as cheese and yogurt. In fact, some granola bars, hot dogs, and many more foods that we don't notice on their ingredient lists also use milk, and 'artificial whey' can be one of those milk substitutes.
In the same way that we don't know that the enzymes that make cheese come from special microorganisms, we may very well have eaten whey and casein from a lab one day without knowing it.
