Will the great whey shortage change how we eat?

When I saw the news about the alarming shortage of whey, I immediately feared for my favourite dish at Tiella, a new Italian restaurant here in London. Chef Dara Klein plates up a creamy and addictive ricotta that she serves with Calabrian chilli and a fragrant honey.

The soft cheese is traditionally created by heating whey and scooping up the protein that coagulates on top – a millennia-old process the Romans came up with to make use of the liquid by-product of cheesemaking. Ricotta literally means “re-cooked” in Italian.

Today, however, the commercial appetite for whey goes far beyond ricotta and deep into a segment of the protein-enriched food market now worth about US$2.5 billion (S$3.2 billion) a year. The demand has become so great that a sales executive at a dairy cooperative told Bloomberg News: “You start to think of yourself as a protein company, not a cheese company.”

Whey was long considered a waste product, in spite of the Romans and ricotta. Mostly liquid, it was expensive to transport and more easily slopped into feed for dairy animals, used as fertiliser or just dumped. Indeed, as recently as the 2010s, New York state was dealing with a glut of acid whey, a by-product of Greek yogurt-making. A craze for the filtered dairy product resulted in so much being produced that companies like Chobani were paying farmers to take the whey for animal feed, manure supplement and even biogas to generate power. But because decomposing acid whey can suck oxygen out of water, that led to environmental concerns.

But sweet whey – not the acidic version – is what’s driving the markets. At first, it too was classified as a lesser-valued run-off. Then a dried, powdered form became a key ingredient for bodybuilders who valued its efficiency and digestibility. A few scoops of whey protein concentrate provide about twice the amount of daily protein required by non-iron pumpers – or the equivalent of ingesting 100g of chicken breast, a cup of yogurt, four or five eggs and some cottage cheese.

The power packed by those puny portion sizes have also proven attractive to people whose appetites have been suppressed by GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy and Ozempic (itself a market that may be worth more than US$250 billion by 2030). They still need protein to stay healthy and the whey concentrate used to supplement processed foods – including sports bars, health shakes and even tortillas, bagels, bread and muffins – is packed with it. The growing cohort of the elderly is also a huge segment of customers. Abbott Laboratories, for example, markets Ensure dietary supplements that include whey. The ingredient is filtered enough to be practically lactose-free, a truly surprising development for a dairy product.

I won’t be surprised if the exponential demand makes it economically feasible to pull protein out of acid whey. For now, it has more minerals that need to be filtered out, as well as ornery chemistry from its pH levels. The funny thing is – as my friend Dan Barber, the chef of Blue Hills Stone Barns, reminds me – traditional Greek cuisine did have uses for acid whey: marinades, drinks, and as an ingredient for bread and baked goods. The problem is scale: The modern yogurt industry produces humongous amounts of the liquid. But who knows? The love of money can be the root of food-processing innovation. Or maybe cunning marketing.

I find it dispiriting that humanity is moving away from the simplicity of ricotta and real food to all this extracted protein. It’s the kind of chase for nutrition rather than nourishment that writers like Michael Pollan have criticised. While I understand that health issues make it important for some people to access nutrients more directly, most of us should stick to the food proven by tradition to provide comfort and joy. It’s tastier too. 

A year ago, as the push for protein was beginning to punch up the marketplace, my colleagues Andrea Felsted and Lisa Jarvis summarised one expert’s advice: “The best option is to get... protein through whole foods, and if they still need help, a reasonable next step is to try a ‘clean’ protein powder that lacks or minimises added sugars or ingredients. Ultra-processed foods should be the last resort.”

I started out with worries about the fate of my favourite ricotta. I messaged Tiella’s chef to ask if she was facing cost pressures because of the shortage of whey. She allayed my fears, saying she’s had a years-long business relationship with her supplier and prices remain stable. She did note, however, that the small independent producer of the honey used in the dish has begun to charge more. Oh no, I said. I’m going to have to deal with bees in a future column. BLOOMBERG