Dairy alternatives growing, farmers told

Published date24 May 2023
Publication titleCentral Rural Life
Technology entrepreneur and foresight practitioner Melissa Clark-Reynolds was the keynote speaker at the DairyNZ Farmers Forum attended by 200 farmers and industry people in Ashburton

In particular, the ingredients business was likely to be in for a hard time from dairy alternatives, she said.

The Future Centre owner revealed during a speech on headwinds and tailwinds in dairying that bio-identical breast milk made in a lab was commercially available and, ‘‘even odder’’, breast milk from nursing mothers was being sold by an Indian company.

‘‘There’s been a little controversy and back and forth about regulations, but in India there is this company, Neolacta, who is actually milking woman and putting milk into UHT boxes.

‘‘When you think about what’s gone on with surrogacy and the idea of can you pay someone else to have your baby, you can sort of see how that could also extend out to can I pay someone to make milk and I milk them?

‘‘I know it sounds weird to us, but if you think back 150 years ago there were wet nurses.’’

Ms Clark-Reynolds said the company was unlikely to survive and was ‘‘on the edges’’, but worth keeping an eye on.

She said ‘‘breast was best’’ and if she could afford it she would choose an infant formula closest to a human formula, so this was the type of headwinds that would be faced over time.

Bio-identical breast milk products were at a point where they were coming on the market. ‘‘This is a big challenge long-term to the infant formula market.

‘‘We see here companies starting to make breast milk ... and putting a whole lot of additives including palm oil in.

‘‘What we get is we can actually put those carbohydrates into the vat with the right microbes and enzymes and come out with bio-identical breast milk.

‘‘Over time we are going to see the market for cow-based infant formula will drop off and for cow-based whey and casein.’’

She said it would take some time before this happened.

Ms Clark-Reynolds showed a list of animal-free dairy brands including California-based company Perfect Day which creates dairy protein by fermentation from fungi in bioreactors.

‘‘We are seeing a number of companies around the world basically bypassing...

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