One of the world giants in the food market, Dutch-British company Unilever is going to produce next year a dairy ice cream, made from cow’s milk, grown in a laboratory.
Next summer, supermarket shelves may be stocked with ice cream “made from cow’s milk without cows. It will be made from milk protein obtained by fermentation, which uses yeast and fungi, among other ingredients, to grow it in vats.
However, natural cow’s milk contains many types of protein, so producing it in the lab with a satisfactory result that allows the product to be used in the same way as “classic” milk is no easy task.
A number of startups have already submitted several prototypes of “lab milk” for consideration by Unilever. The company hopes to commercialize next year a new ice cream under one of its world-famous brands – Ben & Jerry’s, Miko, Magnum, but has not yet specified which one it will choose for the debut.
Unilever explains its idea as the aim to produce the product with less greenhouse gas emissions, particularly methane, which is inevitable in dairy farming, subject to the profitability of the new technology.
However, Unilever is not the first company in the food market, trying to introduce “milk without a cow. Last year, American Starbucks already tried to sell products based on “lab milk” produced by the startup Perfect Day in its cafes in the Seattle area.
