BETTER MILK HAS LANDED: This new milk alternative uses a ‘cow-free’ dairy protein
Betterland, is the first milk to come to market, which uses Perfect Day’s animal-free dairy protein, whey that’s identical to the protein in cow’s milk but made with the use of fungi in bioreactors, not animals.
ADELE PETERS: The newest alternative-milk brand doesn’t call itself plant-based, but “cow-free.” The brand, Betterland, is the first milk to come to market, which uses Perfect Day’s animal-free dairy protein—whey that’s identical to the protein in cow’s milk but made with the use of fungi in bioreactors, not animals.
Replicating the protein makes Betterland’s beverage perform differently from almond milk or soy milk. If you’re making a latte, for example, the new “milk” is designed to froth exactly like standard milk, forming bubbles in the same way. “When you pour it into your coffee, you can drink a whole cup of coffee and you still have the peak [of foam] at the bottom,” says Lizanne Falsetto, founder and CEO of Betterland Foods. In the same scenario, some plant-based milks go flat. Similarly, if someone uses the new milk to bake or cook with, it will act like traditional milk when whipped or heated.
Like some other food companies, Perfect Day uses a process called “precision fermentation” to make dairy proteins. In tanks similar to those used to brew beer, they feed sugar to microbes that are genetically engineered with the cow DNA to make whey proteins. While it might sound futuristic, it’s a process that’s already used in food production: Most rennet, an ingredient in cheese that was traditionally made from the stomach of a calf, is now made with precision fermentation. Impossible Foods uses the process to make heme, an ingredient that helps its plant-based burgers taste more like real meat. (Insulin for diabetic patients is made the same way.)…
Betterland’s team took the protein and went through a year-long R&D process to develop a recipe for its first two products, a whole milk and a “creamy” version designed specifically for baking. “We did a complete category deep dive into what was on the shelf today, what we would want to make different, and we then took it to bench,” Falsetto says, meaning the company’s test kitchen. The new milk uses coconut oil, sunflower oil, and a supplement called MCT oil, among other ingredients. It has 8 grams of protein—far more than some plant-based milks—less fat than whole milk, and a third of the sugar. It also avoids some of the other challenges of conventional milk, from cholesterol to hormones and antibiotics. It’s lactose free, but because it contains real dairy proteins, anyone with a whey allergy shouldn’t consume it…
Betterland says that it wants to make something that tastes better than milk. “Transparently, our goal for the performance of Betterland milk is to be virtually indistinguishable from cow’s milk in terms of frothing, foaming, cooking, whipping, baking, or steaming,” says Falsetto. “In terms of flavor, however, our goal is for Betterland milk to be preferred over traditional cow’s milk.” Betterland’s milk will launch later this spring at a premium price, though, eventually, the company wants to compete on price with traditional milk. SOURCE…
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