Prices for whey powder in its key market, the United States, were soaring this year.<\/p>\n
Rabobank said in a recent agribusiness report that whey powder prices were up 76% in June, compared with the same time last year, and spot prices were up 60% from the start of 2026.<\/p>\n
The bank\u2019s senior analyst in animal proteins, Jen Corkran, said high-protein yoghurt and dairy drinks containing whey were now in demand globally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got these Gen-Zs and even your millennials in the gym, but also just everyday prioritising protein,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve seen this really big protein demand, and milk protein in particular benefits from this.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing a lot of protein labelling, your yoghurts, protein powders, and this is really adding to that demand story.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wegovy wave<\/p>\n
South Island dairy company Westland Milk was expanding its lactoferrin production facility in Hokitika to meet demand, advertising a number of jobs online at the West Coast facility.<\/p>\n
Its owner, Yili Oceania\u2019s chief executive Alex Turnbull, said body builders drove early bioactive protein demand, but it was now much more mainstream, especially with the rise of GLP-1 medication use.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticularly with these ageing populations in Western and Eastern culture,\u201d Turnbull said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then, what\u2019s happened is with this crazy trend in the world for these weight-loss drugs known as GLP-1, which is an appetite suppressant.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever you eat needs to be very, very nutritiously dense, because you lose a lot of muscle mass when you lose weight so quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd those are the casein proteins and the whey proteins.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the United States, the use of appetite-suppressant GLP-1 medications for diabetes and weight loss had become more widespread in recent years with the development of brands such as Ozempic or Wegovy.<\/p>\n
Turnbull said there was good demand for whey in the US, Europe and Asia.<\/p>\n
He said people better understood the important role of proteins in the body these days.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re seeing customers putting protein into anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd that\u2019s been the second catalyst to drive such enormous demand for dairy proteins, indeed throughout the world, but particularly the epicentre being in the United States of America.\u201d<\/p>\n
Westland Milk was bought by China\u2019s Yili Group in 2019.<\/p>\n
The whey to boost immune health<\/p>\n
Selling the health benefits of a whey protein complex was the name of the game for Quantec, a small but longstanding Waikato company.<\/p>\n
It sourced milk from companies in one of the country\u2019s key dairy regions, then contract manufacturers extracted a natural mix of bioactive proteins including lactoferrin to create an ingredient that promoted immune health.<\/p>\n
Chief executive John Dawson said half the team were scientists who had spent years testing and working to prove the product\u2019s health benefits, such as reducing the frequency of colds in children.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are focused on a very, very small subset of the bioactive proteins in milk,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis really has carved out a unique niche for us in the dairy space.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been able to create a branded ingredient we call IDP, immune defence proteins, and that branded ingredient is used as an active ingredient in dietary supplements, health supplements, mainly in China, but also in other parts of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawson said China was its top export market, that Taiwan and Japan were going well, and it was sending a little bit into Europe, with hopes to grow the US market.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where the value is for us, is in building that brand supported by the science and the clinical studies.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s a pretty narrow focus, but that\u2019s going to keep us busy for the foreseeable future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dawson said a focus on immune health was huge during the Covid-19 years, but had since dropped off a bit.<\/p>\n
In addition to immune defence, he said it was exploring whey\u2019s other functional traits such as anti-inflammatory or antimicrobial, as well as benefits for pets, riding on the back of the trend of owners humanising their animals.<\/p>\n
It hoped to publish two clinical health studies, one in China and one in the United States.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prices for whey powder in its key market, the United States, were soaring this year. Rabobank said in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":998974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[37],"tags":[82487,26113,12039,27229,1230,381,210,400144,635,1182,1929,30234,67,132,68,121957,220525,27230],"class_list":["post-998973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-boom","tag-dairy","tag-demand","tag-drive","tag-drugs","tag-for","tag-health","tag-monique","tag-new","tag-nutrition","tag-protein","tag-steele","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-weightloss","tag-whey","tag-zealand"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117090457261752515","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=998973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/998974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=998973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=998973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=998973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}