Israelis Brag About Lab Milk Replacing Cow Milk, But Farmers Sneer

After 15 years of research at Tel Aviv University led by Imagindairy co-founder and chief science officer Tamir Tuller, Israelis have come up with this novel way of making milk based on animal-free proteins, which he hopes to market in two years, Cookson Beecher reported for Food Safety News (FSN).

Photo Insert: Imagindairy recently closed a $13 million seed round to commercialize cow-free milk proteins.

Imagindairy recently closed a $13 million seed round to commercialize cow-free milk proteins. “The market is eager to develop new dairy analogs based on our animal-free proteins,” said Eyal Afergan, company co-founder and CEO, in a statement, referring to products that are equivalent to dairy products.

This new approach will involve feeding microorganisms that the scientists say are up to 20 times more efficient than a cow’s system in turning feed — hay, and grain, for example — into human food.

The idea is to render the multi-trillion dollar global dairy industry as we know it obsolete. Like lab meat, which is made with tons of sugar and salt but could produce the blood protein Heme that gives meat its taste, they could not replicate the quality and taste of cow’s milk.

Imagindairy does this by using what is called “precision fermentation” to create “true” milk proteins — including, in particular, casein and whey, two of the key compounds responsible for taste, texture, and other properties of cow’s milk and its derivatives. In fermentation, the power of microflora is tapped.

These tiny microorganisms are busy fermenting things all around us — in the soil, among plants, inside cows’ digestive systems, and even inside of ours, where they help our bodies digest the food we eat.

Simply put, fermentation is the process in which a substance breaks down into a simpler substance. In the case of “precision fermentation,” scientists give these busy microflora the precise DNA sequence that provides a blueprint for making cow whey and casein proteins. Casein makes up 80 percent of the milk protein, while whey, which gives milk its flavor and texture, accounts for 20 percent.

However, fourth-generation Oregon dairyman Jon Bansen, a spokesman for Organic Valley, a nationwide co-op, isn’t surprised by this sort of talk. He says that a large part of the reason that these companies are working on producing what could be called “lab milk” comes down to money.

“They see an opening and they want to get into it,” he said, referring to beliefs on the part of modern-day consumers that agriculture is cruel and environmentally harmful.

“Unfortunately, many people in this new generation are equating all of agriculture with agribusiness,” he said. Explaining that the many nutrients in the plants the cows are eating come from their interaction with the soil, he said that that’s why you need to farm as close to the soil as possible.

“The microbial health of the soil is so important,” he said. “When you ramp up the health of the soil, you ramp up the nutrients in the plants. And when you do that, you boost the nutrients the cows are getting and therefore the nutrients humans are getting. You won’t get that from lab milk.”

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