Whey overtakes cheese as a source of revenue

The roles in the cheese market are increasingly being reversed. Until recently it was still mainly about the cheese itself and whey was a residual product or almost waste, but at the moment whey is the new gold of the dairy industry. Where a kilo of foil-wrapped cheese at the factory currently yields about €3.5 per kilo, a kilo of WPC80 is paid €23 per kilo. And the product cannot be made fast enough. In both cases the consumer price is still higher, but it reflects the proportions. Cheese is a product that has been made for thousands of years and is relatively easy to produce. To make a kilo of cheese roughly 10 kilos of milk are needed, plus rennet and starter culture. It is a nutritious product with a lot of protein. Old versus new product WPC80 is a relatively new product, with up to 80% concentrated protein, derived from whey. Roughly 100 to 150 kilos of whey are needed for a kilo of WPC80. Various processing steps are required for this. WPC80 is one of the many variants of dried protein that can be made from whey: classic whey powder contains about 11% protein (plus a lot of lactose), but it can also be higher. Classic whey powder was developed to make the residual stream from the cheese industry easier to transport. Originally whey was often discharged or given back to farmers as animal feed, but ordinary whey mainly contains a lot of water. Transporting that is illogical and expensive. Where possible, whey was soon thickened and dried. The powder continued to go largely into animal feed, but increasingly also for human use. From large niche product to mass product Concentrated whey powders were developed for, among other things, infant nutrition, medical applications and sports nutrition. Especially because of the latter, WPC80 has become large, but actually it still remained a kind of niche product. The breakthrough as a mass product came with the appearance on the market of weight loss products such as Ozempic and other GLP1 products. Their use was followed by strong demand for protein-rich food. Hence the enormous demand for WPC80 and other variants. Opportunity through weight loss medication For the dairy industry this is a great opportunity. Whoever can make a lot of concentrated whey proteins has tapped into a strong new source of income. Its value can rise to several euros per 100 kilos of farm milk. Large dairy companies with an extensive processing apparatus, such as FrieslandCampina, Arla, Sodiaal and Lactalis, are the first to reap the benefits. Most smaller (cheese) companies lack such processing infrastructure, because it requires major investment. Even today's dairy giants have been taken by surprise by the sudden high demand for high-protein whey products. Even there, a substantial share of the whey is still leaving unprocessed for animal feed. However, that is changing quickly. Especially thanks to the use of RO installations (reverse osmosis), which can quickly remove water from the whey. After thickening, the concentrate can be transported better and dried elsewhere. Investment wave The success of the WPCs is unleashing a substantial investment wave. In the market there is talk of FOMO, or the 'fear of missing out'. Various medium-sized dairy companies are now also building installations to be able to make whey protein concentrates themselves, or have developed plans for this. The rapidly rising prices for these products cannot be ignored. There is regularly concern that the price will collapse, and there will also be the necessary price corrections, but the demand for high-quality whey proteins does not seem to be decreasing for now. The market is still growing. Of course there are also alternatives to be found, including plant-based ones, but almost all of them lack the effect that has made WPC80 and its variants so popular.