PLANT BASED DAIRY ALTERNATIVES 2022
Dairy sensations:
Building from the base
The jury is still out on the taste of plant-based
dairy alternatives. With the right building blocks,
manufacturers can win over the doubters.
European consumers had a clear message for
food manufacturers in a recent survey by ingredient
company IFF. They want to buy more plantbased
dairy alternatives. But two things are holding
them back – one is their taste preferences, the other the
size of their purse. If manufacturers can just do something
about those issues, then the sales potential is big.
In fact, plant-based dairy alternatives have got a lot going
for them. Consumers who already buy them list environmentally
friendly, good for health, kind to animals
and ‘being trendy’ among their positive associations.
They also like how existing products on the market taste.
But, when IFF asked people why they don’t buy dairy alternatives,
then taste is a problem for more than a third
of non-users across France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and
Spain. Price is a concern for around one in five.
If you look at Germany alone, as market data company
Statista did in early 2021, 37% of adults express a desire
to avoid dairy products. Yet only 27% actually consumed
a plant-based milk in recent months. That’s a gap waiting
to be filled.
The dairy comparison
At IFF, principal application specialist Joachim Schwobe
and principal designer Astrid Gumbinger put their finger
on the crux of the taste problem: consumers still
compare plant-based alternatives to traditional dairy
products.
“They are simply not yet used to the non-dairy taste and
texture of plant-based alternatives,” Gumbinger says.
26 · September/October 2022 ¦ international-dairy.com
It’s not really surprising. Unlike established dairy products,
plant-based drinks and yoghurt stand out for their
lack of standardization.
“Everyone is trying to find the best taste, recipe and
product using a huge variety of raw materials – not only
plant bases like oats, almond, soy or pea but also different
formats of the same plant base, such as oat flour,
syrup or flakes,” Schwobe explains.
“It makes the whole production process much more
complex, and it means that new products come and go
in supermarkets.”
Start with the base
This is where manufacturers can benefit from a stepby
step approach to designing plant-based products
that appeal to consumers who still prefer a dairy-like
experience.
Compare plant bases with milk, and the challenges become
quickly apparent. While whole milk contains 3.5%
fat, 3.4% protein and 4.7% carbohydrate in the form of
lactose, plant bases have a very different nutritional
composition.
That’s why you have to start with optimizing the base.
Schwobe gives an example of the hurdles when producing
an oat-based yoghurt.
“Oats lack the dry matter that can give some basic
structure. To overcome that, you need to start with your
base design, which means choosing the right culture,
enzymes, and stabilizer.”
/international-dairy.com
