Imagine sipping a thick, creamy milkshake or even a perfectly pulled, cheesy slice of pizza. You might begin your day with a foamy cappuccino or a bowl of your preferred yogurt with fresh fruit on top. Now picture indulging in your favorite dairy-rich delicacies, but without any milk from cows.
270 million cows generate 600 million tonnes of milk per year, using a tremendous amount of water, food, and land while also emitting the greenhouse gas methane into the sky. Plant-based milk, cheese, and other dairy products are more widely available than traditional dairy products, but they frequently lack the flavor and texture of the originals since they aren’t as melty or foamy.
Precision fermentation can help with that. Making dairy products without using any animals that are equal in flavor, texture, and nutritional value to traditional dairy from cows has begun by businesses, including numerous food technology startups, and this could change the future of the entire dairy sector.
How Does Precise Fermentation Work?
In the past, precise fermentation was used to create vitamins and insulin; today, it is also utilized to create dairy products.
Beginning in the 1990s, cheese was produced using precision fermentation. Chymosin, a vital part of rennet that is required to make cheese, was originally obtained by slaughtering young calves and taking the protein from their stomach lining. Now, it is produced by microorganisms. Nowadays, nearly 80% of rennet is derived from microbes rather than animal sources, so if you eat cheese, it’s possible that you’ve previously absorbed proteins made through careful fermentation!
In essence, precise fermentation mostly takes place in the absence of cows and uses bacteria to generate the milk proteins casein, and whey. Consider how beer is made: Yeast, a microbe, breaks down plant carbohydrates to make alcohol during the fermentation process. The fermentation that is exact operates similarly.
Milk proteins like whey and casein are produced within two weeks after dairy protein DNA sequences are translated onto microorganisms (like yeast or fungi) and subsequently fermented.
These proteins that are produced as a result of the fermentation process are the same ones that are present in cow’s milk and serve as the foundation for dairy products. As a result, they may be melted, whipped, and frothed, and have the same flavor, texture, and nutritional value as dairy products made from cows. This is because the two are functionally equivalent.
What Are the Benefits of Precise Fermentation?
It s Better for the Climate
For cattle to make milk, enormous amounts of food, water, land, and frequently antibiotics and hormones are required, which has a major negative impact on the environment.
Only 10% of the corn and soy are grown on the nation’s agricultural land is used for human use; the balance is used to feed animals bred for human consumption. This land usage leads to deforestation, deterioration of the environment, and biodiversity loss.
Although peas, rice, oats, almonds, cashews, soybeans, and even potatoes can be used to make dairy-free replacement milk products, harvesting these foods still leads to deforestation. According to Grist, perfect fermentation requires 1,700 times more land than soybeans, one of the top sources of plant protein, to produce the same amount of nutrients.
In total, 14.5% of all greenhouse gas emissions are caused by animals. Methane is a greenhouse gas that cows alone create in excess of 2220 pounds annually, making it 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
The massive resource consumption needed to produce conventional dairy is eliminated through precise fermentation.
Its Input-to-Output Ratio Is More Efficient
Using precise fermentation processes, the Perfect Daya dairy company discovered that their product represented a 99% reduction in water use, 97% in carbon emissions, and 60% in energy use.
It Involves No Animal Exploitation
In addition to using fewer natural resources, accurate fermentation produces far more calories compared to calories consumed. Of all the feed consumed by U.S. livestock, less than10% of feed calories or protein translate to calories consumed as meat, milk, or eggs by humans. This represents a huge loss of available calories and nutrients throughout the process of raising livestock, which is avoided through precise fermentation.
It s More Nutritious
The dairy and factory farming industries have a history of using cruel practices on animals. Milk cows are usually kept indoors and are often tethered, with little or no room to move around for their entire lives.
They are artificially inseminated to keep up their milk production and are forcibly separated from their calves after giving birth. Milk produced through precise fermentation, on the other hand, does t require any animals at all to produce dairy products.
What Companies Are Using Precise Fermentation?
Dairy products made through precise fermentation often have more nutrients than conventional products. Better land Milk says that its formula requires only one-third of the sugar of whole milk, and has no animal fats that are high in cholesterol. It is also shelf-stable for up to a year, so no refrigeration is required, further cutting down on energy usage.
Perfect Day
The precise fermentation industry is growing fast. According to the Vegan Review, investment more than doubled in the span of just a year: $274 million was invested in precise fermentation technology in 2019 and $587 million in 2020.
Read More: The Newest State to File a Lawsuit Against Fossil Fuel Companies Is New Jersey.
Change Foods
Perfect Day
Formo
This alternative cheese company in the Bay Area uses traditional cheese-making methods to produce products that stretch, melt, and taste just like cheese made from cows. Change Foods products, however, use 100x less water, 10x less land, and 5x less energy than traditional, animal-based cheeses.
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Remilk
Famous a Berlin-based company, and that wants to bring the future of food to life through science, cheese, and conversation.
Cheese is their main product, and the proteins they use are entirely lactose-, hormone-, GMO-, and antibiotic-free. Last year, the company earned $50 million in a financing round, setting a record for European food tech.
We have identified cheese as the most substantial consumer pain point when it comes to replacing animal products in our diet, Formo s co-founder Dr. Britta Winterberg toldThe Vegan Review. Our products are not like cheese, they are cheese.
They provide the same functionality, taste, nutrition, and texture as animal-based cheeses, but use substantially fewer resources, creating fewer emissions and being 100% animal-free.
How Might These Dairy Products Change Our Food Systems?
The remark is planning for the world s largest precision fermentation plant to be built in Kalundborg, Denmark. The facility which will be 750,000 feet will create the equivalent volume of dairy proteins as 50,000 cows produce per year, according to Grist.
