Cow-Free Dairy Wants to Beat the Fake Foods Curse, But First … Those Prices
Faux milk is fermented using the DNA code of real cows. But that might not be enough to overcome consumer skepticism.
A Coolhaus chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream sandwich made with Perfect Day’s animal-free dairy.
Photographer: Shawn Michael Jones for Bloomberg Businessweek
First came plant-based meat, then lab-grown chicken. Now entrepreneurs are betting that the next big thing in food technology will be animal-free dairy.
Ryan Pandya, chief executive officer of Perfect Day Inc., which makes dairy ingredients through a laboratory process similar to that used to produce synthetic insulin, once had high hopes of building his own consumer food brands. But as other faux-foods pioneers struggle to win over wary consumers and investors, Pandya is shifting away from his company’s own brands and focusing on selling milk proteins that can be used by multinational food companies in their supply chains. He’s betting food giants will be eager for a product that has a taste advantage over plant-based milks—and that can help them meet their emissions goals by reducing the role methane-belching cows play in their supply chains.