Cow-less casein protein 'first' creates full cheese spectrum

Israel-based food tech start-up DairyX Foods claims the development is a major advancement in creating dairy proteins, through precision fermentation, but without cows.

The fledgling business has refined a suite of complementary technologies to build the “gelation of its casein micelles”, a component vital to producing real cheese qualities without the animal.

Using the new tech, manufacturers can create a variety of cheeses, including firm, stretchy and creamy in traditional ways, claims DairyX.

While other animal-free caseins are available, “not all produced using precision fermentation are alike”, says head of product development and downstream processing, Dr Maya Bar-Zeev.

“We trained yeast to produce the next generation of casein. DairyX’s patent-pending casein is an advanced form, created to precisely and effectively organise into micelles,” continues Bar-Zeev.

Reduced cost of dairy-free cheese

The business can produce high casein volume yields from its yeast strains in short timeframes, meaning it could become a low-cost product and a crucial factor in upscaling animal-free cheese production.

DairyX will focus on scaling up the production process further and collaborating with dairy companies to help them make replicated cheese and dairy products without the use of cows.

“Another significant challenge dairy companies face is adapting their production facilities to use new ingredients,” says Bar-Zeev. “This is why we created a drop-in replacement for milk that does not require process changes or retooling.”

Precision fermentation will be one of several key focus areas for the dairy industry’s sustainable growth​ in the future and will help with a sector reboot, experts have claimed.

Caseins are notoriously hard to make using precision fermentation, but are vital to future efficient, economic and environmentally friendly dairy production.

“Once we successfully crafted caseins, the next major challenge was to upgrade caseins so they could self-assemble into gelating micelles to produce the dairy properties manufacturers are seeking,” explains DairyX CEO and founder Dr Arik Ryvkin.

Precision-fermentation in dairy’s future

Without ingredients like precision-fermented casein, manufacturers rely on other animal-free additives, stabilisers, emulsifiers and thickeners to replicate the qualities of dairy cheese. Although these products often perform poorly in consumer testing.

The alternative-cheese market has been slow to take off, though consumption per capita increased 38% between 2020-2022 [Mordor Intelligence]. Through developments like better quality caseins, the market is projected to hit $559m in the five years to 2029 [Statista].

DairyX’s caseins are claimed to have amino acid sequences like those from animals, though are not genetically modified in their production.

“I am a fan of cows, just not for producing dairy,” continues Ryvkin. “As a scientist and former vegan, I didn’t eat plant-based dairy for a decade because I didn’t find truly tasty and additive-free products.

“To genuinely mimic traditional dairy, producers needed to start with different source ingredients.”

However, DairyX is focused on reducing, not eliminating, the use of cows and cow milk within the dairy industry, the business adds.