{"id":45898,"date":"2022-03-08T01:00:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T09:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/?p=45898"},"modified":"2022-03-08T12:17:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T20:17:13","slug":"perfect-day-whey-protein-alternative-dairy-nut-milk-consumers-ice-cream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/civileats.com\/2022\/03\/08\/perfect-day-whey-protein-alternative-dairy-nut-milk-consumers-ice-cream\/","title":{"rendered":"As Investors Bet on ‘Milk Without Cows,’ Questions About Transparency Loom"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/div>

When Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi stopped eating dairy around a decade ago, they found themselves at a loss to try to replace the creamy consistency associated with the milk and cheese they had grown up eating. In the ensuing years, the pair founded a startup called Muufri\u2014which has since been renamed Perfect Day\u2014dedicated to creating \u201cdairy without the cows.\u201d<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cThey would open their fridge and it was stacked with all of these plant-based options that were fine, right?\u201d Nikki Briggs, Perfect Day\u2019s vice president of corporate communications, told the local publication Berkeleyside<\/a> last year. \u201cBut it just wasn\u2019t the same thing as stretchy cheese on pizza, or silky yogurt, or creamy ice cream.\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer, Pandya and Ghandi decided, was to replicate the protein found in whey using precision fermentation<\/a> to make products that are strikingly similar to \u201cthe real thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, by many accounts, that plan seems to be going well for the company. Perfect Day provides its whey protein to existing food company \u201cpartners\u201d\u2014such as Graeter\u2019s ice cream<\/a> and General Mills, which uses it in its animal-free Bold Cultr cream cheese<\/a>. The company also has its own consumer packaged goods (CPG) arm, called The Urgent Company, which has so far unveiled both an ice cream brand (Brave Robot<\/a>) and a cream cheese brand (Modern Kitchen<\/a>). Over the course of the last two years, Perfect Day has accumulated $750 million in funding<\/a>. In November, it revealed a potential partnership with Starbucks<\/a> and then, in December, The Urgent Company acquired<\/a> the ice cream brand Coolhaus.<\/p>\n\n

Although Perfect Day\u2014which received its first $2 million investment<\/a> in 2014\u2014has been a kind of pioneer in the space, it\u2019s now one of a handful of companies making lab-produced milk. Competitors like Imaginedairy<\/a> and RealDeal Milk<\/a> all appear to be using a similar fermentation process. According to a 2020 report from the trade group the Good Food Institute, three quarters of precision fermentation companies<\/a> are working on dairy. That may be because meat produced through cellular agriculture may ultimately be too costly to make it worth doing at scale. Or it may be that lots of consumers dream of a way around the pitfalls of dairy, but can\u2019t break the habit.<\/p>\n

Either way, \u201cthere is a real revolution going on here,\u201d Jim Mellon, a biotech investor and the author of\u00a0Moo\u2019s Law: An investor\u2019s Guide to the New Agrarian Revolution<\/em><\/a>, said about the trend when speaking to New Scientist<\/a> last August.<\/p>\n

And yet while these \u201canimal-free\u201d dairy brands are promising lower-carbon, kinder products through technology, they may also be benefiting from the fact that most consumers know little to nothing about the science it relies on. And a number of the scientists and food system advocates Civil Eats spoke to worry that a loophole at the U.S. Food and Drug and Administration (FDA) has allowed the company to declare its own products safe, despite being an ultra-processed food made with a novel set of proteins that have never before been on the market. There are also big questions about whether Perfect Day and its peers are simply providing a very expensive distraction from other more\u2014to use their own word\u2014urgent systemic solutions.<\/p>\n

Or, as Anna Lapp\u00e9, sustainable food advocate and author of Diet for a Hot Planet<\/em> (and a Civil Eats advisory board member), <\/em>put it in a recent interview about the phenomenon: \u201cI don\u2019t think the conversation about alternative meat and dairy should take the place of the important conversation about how dominant the meat and dairy industry is, how it needs to be regulated better. We’re not going to take on that corporate power by choosing a different [product] in the marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perfect Day\u2019s Promises<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

Although Perfect Day was founded by dedicated vegans, and promises consumers a \u201ckinder world\u201d on its website, the company\u2019s marketing doesn\u2019t share facts or spend time talking in detail about factory animal farming. Instead, it\u2019s positioning itself in a more neutral way that might appeal to omnivores as well as vegans.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cWe hear from vegans all the time who love our products, but our target consumer is really any food lover who wants to reduce their environmental footprint,\u201d said Tim Geistlinger, Perfect Day\u2019s chief scientific officer.<\/p>\n

Indeed the company says its supply chain results in as much as 97 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions<\/a> than traditional milk. According to Briggs, if just 5 percent of the dairy industry replaced the whey in their products with Perfect Day\u2019s, it would save 12.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions or the \u201cequivalent to the carbon emitted from every single car registered in the city of Los Angeles.\u201d<\/p>\n\n

Perfect Day also provides its own detailed life cycle analysis<\/a> (LCA) of the powdered whey protein on its website, where it claims to use less \u201cblue water<\/a>\u201d and use 60 percent less nonrenewable energy than traditional milk production. When the company released the 2021 LCA\u2014 which was created for Perfect Day by WSP, a global engineering and infrastructure company and reviewed by a panel of experts\u2014Leonardo DiCaprio applauded the company\u2019s \u201cforward-looking vision.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Alastair Iles, associate professor of Sustainability Transitions at the University of California, Berkeley, is skeptical of the company\u2019s claims, in part because they\u2019re so dramatic.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiotech fermentation manufacturing can use up a lot of water and lead to significant wastewater pollution,\u201d says Iles. \u201cThe centrifuge and drying parts will also use a lot of energy. This is why I would be a bit wary of a life cycle assessment that makes the big claims that the company does.\u201d Case in point, while the LCA claims the emissions are reduced by anywhere from 85 to 97 percent, the company has chosen to use the largest number in its materials. And while the analysis is \u201cbased on projected production at a co-manufacturing site in the U.S.,\u201d Geistlinger told Civil Eats that the company produces \u201cour protein at\u00a0a number of\u00a0large food manufacturing sites globally.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe work with our co-manufacturers to ensure consistency regardless of where our protein is being produced, so our LCA is an accurate reflection of our protein production process,\u201d he added. \u201cThat being said, we do plan to conduct additional analyses to even more deeply understand how\u00a0aspects like\u00a0geography\u00a0may impact\u00a0how we are creating a kinder, greener tomorrow and how we maximize that impact.\u201d<\/p>\n

Transparency and GRAS<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

On a weekday in December, the Perfect Day offices, located in an industrial neighborhood in West Berkeley, are nearly empty. After giving a reporter a short tour of the laboratory and test kitchen, Geistlinger offers up a tasting of the surprisingly creamy Modern Kitchen cream cheese on crackers.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cWe want to be very transparent,\u201d he said. \u201cWe want people to understand what we do and how it\u2019s very much building on what the food industry has been doing for over 40 years, but we\u2019re taking the next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Geistlinger also stressed the fact that Perfect Day is using the same percentage of protein that you\u2019d find in traditional dairy. \u201cWe want it to be the same as what the animal is offering. Most vegan products are very low on protein\u2014they\u2019re mostly starches and gums\u2014but we\u2019re matching [dairy] on protein, because we don\u2019t want customers to feel like they\u2019re cheated on that,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

That protein ferments in giant vats similar to the way beer does, but the process differs greatly from what most consumers think of when they hear the word \u201cfermentation.\u201d That\u2019s because it involves genetically modifying a type of fungi similar to yeast (with genetic code from an online database)\u00a0in a solution with sugar so that it excretes something called Beta-lactoglobulin. Then it\u2019s spun in a centrifuge and dehydrated before combined with water and fats like coconut oil to create a \u201cmilk.\u201d<\/p>\n

Iles describes Beta-lactoglobulin as \u201ca key part [but not the only part\u2014perhaps 65 percent] of cow whey. It’s the milk skin that forms on top of a drink when heated.\u201d But Iles and others we spoke to have some questions about the fact that the ingredient is allowed to be sold in food due to the FDA\u2019s Generally Recognized as Safe<\/a> or GRAS regulations, and it harkens back to debate about another ingredient in a meat alternative\u2014the heme Impossible Foods makes<\/a> using genetically engineered yeast.<\/p>\n

\u201cGRAS is now a way for food companies to quickly secure regulatory approvals of new food ingredients, as companies have more scope to make their own determinations and to provide the information they want to provide to the FDA. Plenty of food additives have been given GRAS status without real scrutiny; some may be quite safe for people to eat, but others might not be,\u201d says Iles.<\/p>\n

Perfect Day sent FDA a GRAS notice<\/a>\u2014essentially explaining why they believe their new form of whey protein is safe. Then in March of 2020, they were informed that the agency \u201chad no questions,\u201d meaning it wouldn\u2019t contest the use of the ingredients.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving a microorganism the instructions on how to make a protein it wouldn\u2019t normally make,\u201d said Geistlinger.<\/p>\n

But not everyone sees it that way. \u201cTheir basic argument is that because fungus-made whey is chemically identical to animal-made whey, it should therefore be approved. This also seems to be the FDA’s reasoning, but it’s based on the company’s argument,\u201d says Iles.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re assuming that because the amino acid is the same, nothing else has changed,\u201d said Michael Hansen, a senior scientist at Consumer Reports. \u201cCould this product that they’re producing have a different impact on gut microflora, for example, compared to a whey protein from a cow? The answer is, we don’t know. At the DNA level, it’s different.\u201d<\/p>\n

For this reason, Hansen says, \u201cIt would seem appropriate that these products be treated like new food additives.\u201d And yet, at the same time, he believes the fact that Perfect Day is submitting GRAS notices at all is worth noting. Because the GRAS process is voluntary, \u201cthere could be companies out there putting these kinds of products into their foods without letting anybody know.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Hansen and others in the public health and food safety fields have concerns about the GRAS that extend far beyond Perfect Day. The Center for Food Safety and the Environmental Defense Fund sued the FDA over the GRAS rule in 2017, and a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit<\/a> last October. Lawmakers have also introduced bills in Congress that would require the agency to study and reassess<\/a> the chemicals used in foods.<\/p>\n

The company acknowledges that allergies are a concern for those who might mistake the product for dairy-free. It has worked with the Food Allergy Research & Resource Program at the University of Nebraska and includes an allergen warning on the front of packaging, in addition to the mandated back of package warning.<\/p>\n

\u201c<\/strong>We do not plan to do human testing because our whey protein is bioidentical to traditional whey protein which has been a staple of diets for centuries,\u201d Geistlinger said. \u201cAdditionally, precision fermentation has been used safely for over five decades to create the majority of food enzymes, like rennet used for cheese manufacturing globally, and other common food staples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michele Simon, a public health attorney and the former executive director of the Plant Based Foods Association, compares the way companies like Perfect Day use terms like \u201cprecision fermentation\u201d to earlier attempts seed and pesticide companies made to obfuscate the fact that they were using new, unknown technology to breed GMO seeds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Monsanto<\/a> era, the biotech industry did a great job in getting the federal government to not require companies that use genetic engineering to label their products accordingly,\u201d says Simon, \u201cThat\u2019s been the history of the FDA for decades.\u201d Last June, she penned a LinkedIn article<\/a> examining Perfect Day\u2019s \u201crush to market\u201d with the Brave Robot ice cream and pointed to their use of the term \u201cvegan friendly\u201d despite the fact that it is made with whey. In it, she called out the brand\u2019s narrative: \u201cThis messaging, attempting to justify a new form of biotechnology by comparing it to age-old food-making techniques should sound familiar,\u201d Simon writes. \u201cIt\u2019s from the Monsanto playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n

Replacing Factory Farming?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

The market for plant-based alternatives is growing<\/a> as more than 52 percent of Americans<\/a> say they are eating more of these foods. But it\u2019s not exactly clear whether new high-tech alternatives will actually lead to a reduction in overall consumption of factory farmed meat and dairy. In fact, overall U.S. meat consumption appears to have gone up slightly<\/a> between 2020 and 2021. Overall dairy consumption<\/a> has also increased more or less consistently since 2002.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cThese companies will tell you they\u2019re on a mission to displace dairy, but they can\u2019t explain how putting out GMO protein products is displacing anything in the food system,\u201d said Simon, who is an outspoken vegan. \u201cIs Starbucks going to stop serving dairy now? The only way to save the nation from the damages of dairy production is to get a company to stop serving the harmful dairy.\u201d<\/p>\n

And not everyone wants to see all dairy displaced. For instance, Iles says that while the current model of industrial animal agriculture isn\u2019t sustainable, that doesn\u2019t mean it couldn\u2019t move in that direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cDairy has become very intensive, dependent on energy-consuming technologies, building much more massive cow herds than before, and using feed sourced from soybeans. At the same time, animals are central to sustainable agriculture. Not only can they contribute important inputs to a farm, they support a functioning farm ecosystem and help support a diversified farming system. So reducing\u2014not eliminating\u2014dairy milk would be a good idea.\u201d He also points to the plight of farmers in places like Wisconsin, which lost 10 percent of its dairy farms in 2019 alone. \u201cWe need more support for those farmers to survive and to practice sustainable agriculture,\u201d adds Iles.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important to not fall into a binary\u2014that we have to choose between horrific factory farming or problematic GMOs,\u201d says Dana Perls, the food and technology program manager at Friends of the Earth. \u201cThere are very sustainably grown, organic, plant-based proteins. There are also very well managed, pasture-based production systems that have been providing a very critical alternative to factory meat and dairy,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

And while Perfect Day doesn\u2019t make big health claims, it isn\u2019t clear that most consumers see meat alternatives as the heavily processed products they are. <\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cIn recent years, ultra-processed foods have emerged as a major concern for public health experts,\u201d said Iles. \u201cEven if the [dairy products] are not in the same category as, say, packaged meals, it still amounts to a model of food production that is in the same line as the industrial foods we’ve been eating for decades,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Looking to a Perfect Future <\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>

While Perfect Day has made itself at home in the dairy aisle, it\u2019s also hoping to work with food manufacturers to include its whey in products typically found in a wide range of other parts of the store.<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cWe\u2019ve already seen what our protein can do in replacing the equivalent of three eggs in cake mix and giving performance nutrition to athletes in protein powder, and our food team has created prototypes of everything from salad dressings to whiskey sour mixes to confectionary treats and beyond,\u201d said Geistlinger.\u00a0\u201cWe\u2019re just getting started with whey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many alt-protein brands have been acquired by large meat and dairy<\/a> corporations in recent years \u2014and Anna Lapp\u00e9 says that trend raises big questions about the potential for systems change.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese products become a profit-generating portion of a portfolio for a company that can use that profit and invest it back into its highly environmentally destructive industrial meat and dairy production and expand those throughout the world as they continue to do,\u201d says Lapp\u00e9.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s not Perfect Day\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur business model exists to help make other brands, big and small, kinder and greener,\u201d Senior Corporate Communications Manager Anne Gerow told Civil Eats. \u201cWe aim to make our supply chain more resilient through partnerships with companies who want to use our protein or technology as part of their sustainability commitments, and [we] are not looking to be acquired by them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, Iles says he\u2019s curious about whether the company plans to patent its manufacturing process. \u201cA lot of the new technologies are more about creating valuable IP than anything else, if you look deeper,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

And in the end, most of the critics we spoke to saw Perfect Day as representative of a much larger pattern: A reliance on new products and technology as silver bullets at a time when much larger change is needed.<\/p>\n

For starters, that means relying less on dairy and meat as the basis of the American diet\u2014regardless of how it\u2019s made. \u201cIf Americans just ate\u2014even if it was still terrible, factory-farmed meat and dairy\u2014the amount of protein that was aligned with what our bodies can use<\/a> and what science says is best for our health, there would be a dramatic reduction in the demand for meat in this country,\u201d said Lapp\u00e9.<\/p>\n

It also means holding the companies that make our food to account rather than crossing our fingers that the next company will make better choices in a minimally regulated industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don’t need to hold out hope around being able to scale up a new technology,\u201d said Lapp\u00e9. \u201cWhat we really need is the political will to take the kind of regulatory action needed and put pressure on corporations to clean up their supply chains.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tilde Herrera contributed reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cThey would open their fridge and it was stacked with all of these plant-based options that were fine, right?\u201d Nikki Briggs, Perfect Day\u2019s vice president of corporate communications, told the local publication Berkeleyside last year. \u201cBut it just wasn\u2019t the same thing as stretchy cheese on pizza, or silky yogurt, or creamy ice cream.\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1234,"featured_media":45928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4368,4346],"tags":[],"coauthors":[43388,3431],"class_list":["post-45898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-technology"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nAs Investors Bet on 'Milk Without Cows,' Questions About Transparency Loom | Civil Eats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Perfect Day and other companies making milk with precision fermentation promise animal-free, lower-carbon products through technology. 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