Whey to go, guys: 10 innovations from the dairy industry this year

Boosting British exports

The Organic Milk Suppliers Co-operative (Omsco) and Wyke Farms have joined forces to create the world’s biggest organic dairy supplier in a bid to “unlock the potential of British organic dairy” both domestically and abroad.

The innovative joint venture, launched earlier this year, will produce branded and own-label organic dairy products certified to EU, US and Chinese standards, while also serving the UK market.

As part of the deal, Wyke is sourcing all its organic milk for cheese production from Omsco, while the organic milk supplier has taken a share in the ownership of bulk cheddar stocks for a proportion of domestic and export sales, reducing Wyke’s exposure to volatile markets.

With organic cheese underperforming in comparison to other organic dairy products – just 1% of the UK’s cheese market is taken up by organic compared with 5% in milk and 8.5% in yoghurt – the company is putting a big emphasis on cheddar. It launched a new brand – The British Organic Cheese Company – which it will aim at export markets alongside Wyke and Omsco’s existing brands.

In total, the company is planning to manufacture up to 5,000 tonnes of organic cheese a year, within three to four years. Production is already up 60%, putting it well on track to hit that target.

So far, the jv has already secured deals with three major mults in the UK, supplying own label organic cheddars and Wyke Farms Organic in Ocado as well as gaining listings in a number of retailers in northern Europe for the Wyke Farms organic brand. It is also exporting Omsco’s Kingdom brand, which is the first British organic cheddar brand to gain USDA approval for export to the US, and is set to launch further brands in 2019.

Becoming self-sufficient

It’s not easy for a large dairy company to go green. But that’s exactly what Dairy Crest has got its eye on as it targets self-sufficiency in water use at one of the UK’s biggest cheese processing plants by 2023.

The cheese giant’s Davidstow creamery in Cornwall, which produces cheese for Cathedral City and Davidstow, currently obtains half of the plant’s daily water usage from recycled sources, recovering 1.5 million litres of its own water each day. Another quarter is sourced from a nearby well and the remainder is provided by South West Water.

Opinion: Water scarcity means there’s no such thing as ‘guilt-free’ fruit & veg

It aims to cut down its water usage while also increasing the amount it extracts from the 90% water whey byproducts of its cheesemaking, with the aim of reducing and eventually ending its reliance on the well and utilities suppliers. The dairy company also plans to install membrane bio-reactors, which will be used to filter and treat its waste water, so it can be filtered back into the creamery.

Dairy Crest’s eco-friendly push doesn’t stop there. It also plans to build its own solar farm to supply energy to Davidstow. The five-year project is set to cut the plant’s greenhouse gas emissions by 1,700 tonnes of CO2 per year (equivalent to the emissions of around 400 typical households), and feed excess power back to the grid.

Making territorials trendy

Shropshire supplier Belton Farm is spearheading a resurgence in territorial cheese with its new modern ‘Fox’ brand. Based on aged red and white Leicester recipes, Red Fox and White Fox are the first branded territorials to hit the mults “in years” claims the supplier, which changed its name from Belton Cheese to Belton Farm last year.

The brand hopes to appeal to “a new generation of discerning cheese buyers” by “taking a leaf out of craft beer’s book”, and has already scored listings in Tesco, Waitrose and Booths.

It’s even teamed up with TV chef Joe Hurd to spread the message that “there’s more to cheese than cheddar”.

Run by third generation dairyman Justin Beckett, Belton Farm has also introduced new minimalist packaging across its ever-expanding Belton Farm masterbrand of territorial cheeses.

Leading the whey

Arla is bulking up its returns from the protein boom by developing innovative ingredients based on whey – a by-product of cheese production previously cast aside as waste.

The dairy co-op’s ingredients division this year announced plans to splash out a further €100m on “new technology and capacity expansions” for its production of whey protein ingredients.

Recent innovations include new Lacprodan TexturePro, designed to address textural deterioration in protein bars, which tend to go hard towards the end of their shelf life. Arla has also developed a neutral-tasting hydrolised whey protein isolate specifically for crystal clear beverages. It can be ultra heat-treated to give it a water-like appearance, avoiding problems often encountered by protein drink manufacturers such as separation and milky colouring.

Making cheese free-range

Leerdammer has become the first major UK cheese brand to commit to using only free-range milk.

The Bel Group-owned brand launched a ‘Free Grazing Promise’ in July, which sees its 1,200 Dutch farmers allow their cows to graze outside for at least six hours a day for a minimum of 120 days each year. Its promise – developed in line with the Dutch Stichting Weidegang (Grazing Foundation) industry standard – compares with 180 days of grazing assured by Pasture Promise and the average of 215 days at pasture claimed by Omsco-supplied organic dairy products.

Bel intends to roll out similar free grazing initiatives across the remainder of its portfolio, including brands Babybel, Laughing Cow and Boursin, by 2025 after co-signing the Upstream Dairy Charter with the WWF earlier this year as part of a sustainability drive.

Bringing the world to Britain

British consumers aren’t always the most experimental when it comes to dairy, but that could be down to the relatively limited choice of products on UK supermarket shelves compared with elsewhere in the world.

That’s all set to change with the arrival of Danone’s new Innovation Incubator, launched at the beginning of 2018 to bring some of the French dairy giant’s most popular ranges from overseas markets to the UK, as well as creating new products designed specifically for British tastes.

The first NPD to hit supermarket shelves is the new Danone of the World range of globally inspired fermented dairy drinks and yoghurts. It includes an Icelandic-style skyr, a Turkish-inspired ayran drink, a Greek-style straggisto yoghurt, an Indian-inspired lassi drink,and a Lebanese-style laban yoghurt.

Based on “authentic recipes from regions around the world with a rich history of yoghurt making”, the Danone of the World lineup was initially launched in France as Danone du Monde on the back of research finding 70% of the population wanted to broaden their culinary horizons, before heading to Italy as Danone dal Mondo and hitting the UK at the end of June with a listing at Ocado.

Shoring up supply

Futureproofing dairy is notoriously difficult, but Müller’s scheme to set up a new cohort of young farmers takes a small step into shoring up its supply.

The Müller Direct Next Generation initiative has taken on a group of 25 Müller Direct farmers under the age of 30 for three years of support and training. Under the scheme, the dairy giant is set to fund a range of two-day training sessions on topics including market analysis, managing people, negotiating and business improvement planning for the Next Generation group of farmers, who hail from as far afield as North Lanarkshire and Dorset.

The first incarnation of the group, set to meet thrice yearly, held their first meeting to share advice and best practice in June. Its scheme will accept new applicants yearly subject to a minimum of three years’ farm experience.

Crowdfunding to ditch plastic

The 2015 dairy crisis saw some of the worst farmgate milk prices for years, with many farmers tipping their milk down the drain as a glut flooded the market. Having inherited the family farm against this backdrop, third generation dairy farmer Bryce Cunningham decided to take Mossgiel Farm in a new, sustainable direction.

Fed up of being controlled by the big dairies, Cunningham switched to organic and installed and an on-site pasteuriser so Mossgiel could sell its milk direct to consumers. And he’s now launched a bid to make it the UK’s first plastic-free organic dairy farm. Having already successfully crowdfunded a section of cow tracks to keep the farm’s herd of Ayrshire cows, affectionately known as the Mossgiel girls, grazing outside in wet weather, Cunningham once again turned to the internet. A £10k campaign to raise money for Robert Burns-branded glass bottles and miniature milk churns, paying homage to the bard who lived on the farm when he first found fame, achieved its fundraising target in August after just 47 days online. Once the new glass bottles roll out, Mossgiel will trial its own deposit return scheme, with customers paying a small rental fee on first purchase, then paying for only the milk on visits to participating stockists when they return the bottle.

Read more: Can dairy packaging really go plastic-free?

Tackling disease

Genetics company Semex is helping reduce antibiotic use in the dairy supply chain by developing technology to identify animals with the highest natural immunity to disease.

Having won the Royal Dairy Innovation Award for its Immunity+ programme, which identifies enhanced disease resistance in bulls, the company recently launched new test Elevate. It identifies the genome-containing traits of a high immune response in females, cutting the five-year wait before an Immunity+ sire passes on increased resistance to daughters. According to the programme’s first commercial results, high immune responders have up to 20% lower mortality and respond better to vaccination programmes. By choosing to breed from these animals, farmers can boost the natural disease resistance of their herd and thus reduce their reliance on antibiotics.

Carving the way for kefir

Since its launch in 2012, Bio-tiful Dairy has been carving the way for of kefir-based dairy products in the UK. Founded by Russian former figure skater Natasha Bowes, who is lactose intolerant and wanted to see the product she grew up with in Moscow on shelves in her adopted home, the brand has secured listings across the big four.

Not content with its kefirs, smoothies and organic range, Bio-tiful launched a kefir-quark breakfast range earlier this year. Tapping trends for fermented foods promoting gut health, on-the-go food options and high protein diets, the brand claimed a world first with its combination of bio-live kefir and high-protein quark in a breakfast pot. And this month, the brand will take that ambition a step further, moving its kefir-quark breakfast products into a big pot format, packing a hefty 20g of protein in under 110 calories per serve.

Opinion: The dairy aisle should make plenty of room for kefir – fermented milk is here to stay