Diving overview:
- Israeli food technology company DairyX Foods announced this week that it has taken a major step forward in its mission to create dairy milk without cows.
- The company says it has developed a method to produce casein products that can self-assemble into micelles, “a key component of dairy products” such as cheese and yogurt.
- Dairy This allows manufacturers to produce a firm, stretchy and creamy product using traditional dairy manufacturing processes.
Dive Insights:
Casein micelles are key to giving dairy products the smooth, creamy texture they are known for.
Many dairy-free manufacturers use additives and emulsifiers to achieve the familiarity consumers desire, but this often comes at the expense of the “clean label” element of the product.
DairyX’s precision fermentation technology uses microorganisms, specifically yeast, to produce smart casein proteins.
“Not all caseins produced through precision fermentation are created equal,” Maya Bar-Zeev, head of product development and downstream processing at DairyX, said in a statement. “We trained yeast to produce the next generation of casein.”
The company’s new technology has the potential to not only eliminate the need for additives in plant-based dairy products, but also make such products more affordable, according to a statement.
DairyX is creating a yeast strain that produces large amounts of casein quickly. According to the company, the product allows dairy manufacturers to directly replace milk without having to change tools or processes, eliminating the need to adjust production facilities.
Likewise, Israel-based NewMoo created a plant molecular agriculture platform last May to produce casein from agricultural plant seeds. French company Standing Ovation is currently working to produce fermentation-derived casein on an industrial scale, and California-based New Culture was granted generally recognized as safe status for its fermentation-derived casein product earlier this year.
