High-protein trend fuels rising demand for whey

The demand for whey continues to rise amid health trends that demand higher protein intake and meal replacement shakes. But supply, linked to cheese production, remains stagnant, leading to higher prices for whey.

While whey was once considered a nuisance by-product of cheesemaking that needed to be discarded, Alwyn Kraamwinkel, CEO of the South African Milk Processors’ Organisation, said it had now become a highly valuable product.

South Africa’s lack of processing facilities, however, prevented the dairy industry from truly cashing in on this opportunity.

“To use whey as an ingredient in health supplements, it needs to be processed into a powder concentrate, with certain specifications. While we can process it up to a point, we can’t complete the process to fulfil these specifications. It’s a very expensive process and we don’t have the facilities. We therefore dry and export our whey and then import the fully processed product,” Kraamwinkel said.

He added that 2020 had seen a large spike in the volume of imported whey, which far exceeded exports of the product.

“The demand for specialised grades of whey is growing. Unfortunately, much of South Africa’s whey can’t be used in these products because of the yellow colouring added to cheese. South Africans love their yellow cheese, but the colourant renders the whey unsuitable for the concentrate market.”

Nestlé, a large buyer of whey for its products, said in a statement that the lower demand for cheese during the past few years had also led to a lower supply of local whey, pushing prices up. Nestlé used locally produced sweet whey in its products, and imported modified whey.

Saint-Francis Tohlang, corporate communications and public affairs director at Nestlé’s East and Southern Africa region division, said: “The spike in prices we’re currently seeing is also due to COVID-19 [-related] delays at various harbours, which contributed to the availability of the product, therefore increasing prices.”

He noted, however, that unless cheese production increased worldwide, the price of whey would continue to rise as demand outstripped supply.

On whether South Africa could capitalise on this market opportunity, Kraamwinkel said he believed that the processes involved to convert the whey to the desired specifications were not only too costly for the volume of whey produced in South Africa, but also did not provide significant job opportunities, thereby inhibiting investment. – Lindi Botha