Emily Nytko-Lutz, senior associate at intellectual property law firm Reddie & Grose, explores how current technologies and innovations in the plant-based cheese space can pave the way for a new generation of dairy-free alternatives that taste and behave just like the real thing.

Consumers want alternatives to dairy-based cheeses. Among their reasons are a desire to reduce their environmental footprint, animal welfare issues and personal health concerns, such as food allergies and intolerances or lowering elevated cholesterol. Producing a plant-based cheese that melts and stretches similarly to dairy cheese, however, represents a significant technological hurdle.

The case for casein

Casein is a key protein component that allows animal milk to be made into cheese. Casein is present in milk in micelles, blobs of stuck-together protein molecules, suspended in the liquid.

In traditional cheesemaking, rennet reacts with casein in milk – casein is cleaved and coagulates into curds, which separate from liquid whey. The larger fragment of the cleaved casein remains in a micelle, acquiring a negative charge. The micelles are crosslinked into a three-dimensional network by positively charged calcium ions. Fat and water are interspersed within the network.

Mozzarella is the prototypical melting cheese and can be characterised by several functional attributes: meltability, stretchability, elasticity, free oil formation and browning. When cheese is heated, the casein micelle “net” that gives cheese its structure at room temperature begins to stretch, while bonds formed by the calcium ‘glue’ crosslinking the strands together are broken and reformed. How a cheese melts depends on a variety of factors, including fat or water content, pH and ageing.

Casein is absent from plant-based cheeses, which instead contain a network of starch, protein or a combination of both. Most plant-based cheeses are produced by a process in which functional ingredients are isolated from different sources, processed, combined to form an emulsion, and solidified.

Such cheeses often lack protein and contain functional additives – thickeners, stabilisers or gelling agents – so that they hold their shape at room temperature. Some plant-based cheeses are made from whole plant-based raw materials, such as soy or cashew nuts. These cheeses typically contain more protein (although still only about half the protein of dairy-based cheeses).

Although plant-based cheeses may hold their shape at room temperature, to date their components have not been able to replicate the 3D structure provided by casein in dairy cheese when heated. Several innovative companies are seeking to change this.

Some are seeking to produce casein without using cow’s milk, and a few are even using this casein to produce meltable, stretchable non-dairy cheeses. Other companies are attempting to replicate the functional performance of casein using plant-based proteins.

Precise proteins

Precision fermentation uses precision biology to carry out fermentation processes, harvesting the genetic power of fungi and bacteria to work as factories producing target proteins. In precision fermentation, biologists first test specific microbe strains to see whether they can produce the desired protein. They then use a machine-learning system to recommend changes to the microbial genome – these may be made using high-throughput genetic engineering. In an iterative process, the results are fed back into the machine learning system, it recommends further changes to be tested, and so on. The desired result: a target protein, casein, at the highest possible yield in the shortest possible time.

Startups using precision fermentation to produce meltable, stretchable non-dairy cheeses include Bay-area-based New Culture and Change Foods, the Spanish startup Real Deal Milk, Israeli-based Remilk, UK-based Better Dairy, New Zealand-based Daisy Lab and the Dutch Those Vegan Cowboys.

Regarding the patent landscape, New Culture has three published patent application families directed to casein compositions or cheese, with priority dates as early as 2019. Change Foods has one patent application published in 2023 directed to recombinant casein compositions. As patent applications are not published until 18 months after they are first filed, however, it is possible that there are additional applications in this space.

Other startups are producing recombinant casein as a raw material. These include the Dutch Fooditive Group, Estonian ProProtein, India’s Zero Cow Factory and California-based Perfect Day, which has eight published patent application families mentioning recombinant casein with priority dates back to 2015.

In the area of transgenic plants, Bay-Area-based Nobell Foods uses soybean plants to produce casein, while Israeli-based Pigmentum uses lettuce plants. Nobell have at least five published patent application families detailing technology applicable to recombinant casein.

As recombinant caseins are novel foods, regulatory food safety hurdles must be met before they can be marketed. Fooditive Group is seeking clearance for its casein by the European Food Standards Agency, while New Culture is seeking clearance from the US FDA for its mozzarella, with plans to launch in the food service industry in early 2024.

Exploring new avenues

For consumers avoiding casein, whether due to food allergies, intolerance or personal preference, innovative companies are seeking to produce meltable, stretchable non-dairy cheeses without using the ingredient.

Boston-based Motif Foodworks utilises prolamin technology, using a corn protein (zein), to produce vegan cheese. Motif has obtained rights related to at least one patent application from the University of Guelph.

Bay-Area-based Climax Foods uses AI to uncover plant proteins that mimic the functional performance of casein in a process called “precision formulation,” which involves training AI based on desired attributes in food to optimise ingredients and processes. It claims to have found the first-ever seed-based protein to functionally mimic casein. Climax has at least five relevant published patent application families.

An exciting future for non-dairy cheeses is a reason for the industry and its consumers to smile – so say cheese!

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