Australian biotech firm All G has filed a new patent for a process that can produce recombinant casein micelles at scale, potentially reshaping how dairy proteins are made and used in the food industry.

Recombinant casein micelles are formulated by introducing genes from one organism into another to produce proteins that are either identical or similar to the ones found in natural milk.

The development could help F&B companies meet the rising demand for dairy in its optimal functional form across categories such as cheese, yogurt, milk, and infant formula while lowering environmental impact.

“If you are a dairy or a food company that’s using liquid milk or dried milk as their base ingredient for producing food or other ingredients, 80% of the protein content in those ingredients is casein proteins,” Dr. Jared Raynes, chief scientific officer at All G, tells Food Ingredients First in an exclusive interview.

“Casein proteins are found in a casein micelle, which is extremely important to those companies. If they want to use precision fermented caseins, they need to be able to assemble those into casein micelles to replicate the textures and functionalities of the foods they’re already producing.”

What are casein micelles?

Raynes notes that exploration of nature-identical casein micelle formation has been largely confined to scientific literature, as these methods are difficult to scale for real world applications.

“This is what our new patent application overcomes,” Raynes asserts.

“All G has developed a process to form native-like casein micelles that are fast, scalable, and can be slotted into existing dairy factories using their current equipment. This technology can also open up new product categories.”

The process is extendable to the production of human casein proteins for infant formula, the demand for which is expected to increase dramatically per industry reports.

But for the food industry already, casein micelles have many use cases, whether giving the cheese its stretch and texture or the microbubbles in a frothy cappuccino. 

“In cheese making, we take liquid milk and add the enzyme rennet. This enzyme destabilizes the casein micelle, and that’s what causes it to clump together and form the curds,” Raynes explains.

Some cheeses can be made without casein micelles, but they are limited in number, making these particles “extremely important” in cheese making. “For coffee, if you want the foam to last a long time and have amazing texture, you also need those casein micelles.”

Dairy decline

All G does not see itself as a replacement for traditional dairy but aims to work closely with the sector to increase the amount of dairy proteins available to consumers.

“If you think about the growth of the dairy product category over the coming years, wher is the extra milk going to come from even to be able to bring on the natural evolution of the increase in dairy products that are needed over time?”

According to the International Farm Comparison Network’s research, many major dairy-exporting regions, such as the EU and New Zealand, are experiencing a decline in production. The organization notes that the supply-demand imbalance will worsen, potentially resulting in a deficit of 10.5 million metric tons of milk by 2030.

“New Zealand reached ‘peak cow’ [the point wher the number of dairy cows reach a maximum and are not expected to grow further] several years ago. There has been a year-on-year reduction in milk supply in other big dairy countries.”

“So if you want to keep up with the increase in demand, you’ll need precision fermentation. These casein micelles can help traditional dairy companies produce yogurts and milk.”

Raynes tells us that scaling the technology enough to supply the proteins to supermarket chains is the challenge at the moment.

“The dairy industry is already enormous. While precision fermentation has been around for a while, the infrastructure to mass-produce caseins worldwide isn’t there yet. Many start-ups have strains ready to go, but the price points of traditional caseins are very low.”

Technical challenges

At a more micro-level, developing the technology came with a series of technical barriers, says Raynes. The first one was to produce functional and phosphorylated casein, a challenge that started in the fundamental science area.

“Caseins are special proteins decorated by phosphate molecules. These molecules help bind calcium and phosphate and form the casein micelle. If you don’t have these phosphorylations on your casein, you can’t begin to make a casein micelle,” he explains.

“Step two, you need to be able to make this complex protein component called a casein micelle. You have to be able to try and replicate this outside of the mammary gland and control the interactions between protein and protein, as well as protein, calcium, and phosphate, at the right temperature and pH, getting all these components correct.”

To translate the technology into an industrial process, the company has designed the process to be compatible with current dairy manufacturing systems.

Targeting dairy emissions

Beyond replicating the protein profile of milk, Raynes emphasizes All G’s technology could lead to “significant reductions” in greenhouse gas emissions.

“Under the production process of traditional milk, you have to grow a baby cow for two to three years until it’s lactating. Until then, it’s producing nothing for you.”

He cites a life cycle analysis conducted by Perfect Day, a precision fermentation dairy supplier start-up, which found that its whey protein had a “91-97% lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional whey.”

“They also found 29 to 60% lower energy demand and 96-99% lower blue water consumption.”

While All G has not done such an analysis on its protein, Raynes says previous analyses can be extended to other dairy proteins, including caseins.

“Dairy players could look at starting to incorporate maybe 5% precision fermented casein proteins and micelles into their current portfolio, and as the infrastructure catches up, we can produce more caseins using this technology.”

This would see a reduction in the overall environmental footprint of the sector. “An essential part of the dairy industry’s future is using these precision fermented casein proteins,” Raynes concludes.