There are plenty of alternatives and imitators lined up next to real ice cream in your grocer’s freezer. But there’s a new one that can claim to be 100% “dairy.”
Perfect Day Foods, a Berkely, Calif.-based start-up, has developed a method of inserting the DNA sequence of real dairy protein into yeast molecules. The yeast then is fermented, allowing it to grow and replicate, producing the two main proteins found in cow’s milk – whey and casein.
The proteins then are separated from the yeast and dried into a whey powder that is molecularly identical to whey protein from cows. The company promotes the ingredient as “animal-free dairy,” and equate its production process to the exercise of brewing beer. They also tout it as 100% vegan, lactose-free, hormone-free, and antibiotic-free.
The whey powder is used in standard manufacturing processes to create an ice cream product that samplers declare is as creamy, tasty, and satisfying as the real thing.
The product’s founders claim it IS the real thing because it is produced with the exact same proteins as standard ice cream, which have just been derived in a different way. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has granted roundabout confirmation of this claim.
In April 2020, the FDA declared the protein is “Generally Recognized as Safe,” and issued a coveted “no questions letter,” giving Perfect Day the green light to begin commercial production and marketing. The FDA also noted that products containing the protein ingredient need the same allergy labeling as milk, which the developers declare as proof that it is identical to cow-sourced dairy.
Not long after, the Perfect Day founders teamed up with a dairy manufacturing expert to spawn The Urgent Company. They rolled out Brave Robot ice cream less than a year later. The brand currently sells a line of eight ice cream flavors that are commercially available in more than 5,000 stores representing several east-coast U.S. grocery chains, including Kroger, Albertsons/Safeway, and Harris Teeter.
Perfect Day also has launched a commercial ice cream product called “Ice Age” Hong Kong, and is supplying the whey protein ingredient to other manufacturers to produce their own brands, including Ohio-based Graeter’s.
At approximately $5.99 per pint, it remains to be seen whether the products will gain widespread consumer acceptance, or whether the product’s socially conscious consumer base will object to the fact that the base protein is developed using yeast that is a genetically modified organism (GMO).
