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An Israeli company may be on the verge of delivering a holy grail of sustainable food: cow-free cheese that’s just as stretchy as the real thing. DairyX claims to have successfully developed a new method using fermented yeast to produce the specially arranged casein proteins that give milk products their telltale stretchiness.
Food companies and their scientists are getting increasingly better at making plant-based products that can approach the taste of animal-derived foods, such as Impossible Foods’ plant-based meat used in their Impossible Burgers (goes great in a Burger King Whopper, just so you know). That said, plant-based cheeses still have a lot of catching up to do when it comes to matching their dairy-based counterpart, especially when it comes to the stretchy consistency classically seen in foods like pizza. While some companies are working to develop the right blend of plant-based materials and additives to mimic this trait, others like DairyX are instead hoping to mass-produce the essential components of dairy but without needing the cows themselves.
“People have been trying to take the cow out of making dairy since the late 1970s,” Arik Ryvkin, DairyX founder and chief executive, told the Guardian. “We now bring the last step in that line of evolution … helping dairy companies make the exact products consumers desire while helping cows live happier lives.”
DairyX’s purported innovation relies on precisely fermented strains of yeast that produce casein proteins that are functionally the same as those found in cow milk. More than that, the company says they’ve found a way to induce their casein proteins into self-arranging themselves into the ball-shaped structures called micelles that are responsible for the stretchiness of cheese. Researchers at DairyX have reportedly been able to confirm their success by successfully coagulating their casein using the same approach as traditional dairy products.
In a press release, the company described several key milestones. Along with engineering yeast to produce functional caseins, the team used machine learning and a fast-tracked screening process to identify high-protein yeast strains and optimize fermentation. It also successfully created a gel from reconstituted casein micelles, accelerating the development of functional micelles for use in food products.
Other companies are currently working to create and sell their own cow-free casein and dairy products using precision yeast fermentation or other techniques. And DairyX has yet to test out the actual taste of its product since it is still waiting for regulatory approval. But the company believes its micelle-assembling method will give it a leg-up on competitors, and it envisions selling its dried casein micelles to cheese, yogurt, and other dairy producers, allowing them to create more sustainable products with little to no changes to their existing manufacturing processes. The company plans to scale up operations and secure regulatory approval to start having its product available to the public by 2027.
Time will tell how any of these endeavors will go. But given the urgent need to reduce our greenhouse emissions, which dairy cows substantially contribute to, successfully developing guilt-free cheese and other dairy products would be an important step forward.
