Dairy Analogues Pose Challenge to Dairy Industry

“ Commercialisation of dairy analogues will adversely influence the livelihood of Indian dairy farmers because if dairies were to sell their products at a low price in competition with analogues, the prices payable will not be adequate. The Scientific Panel on Milk and Milk Products of FSSAI is examining this subject. The Indian dairy industries are demanding that the rules on packaging and labeling must be made more stringent to prohibit the manufacturers of dairy analogues from using faulty advertisements and label declarations to save the consumers from exploitation. This is necessary for enabling the dairy sector to continue as the major contributor to the Indian economy.

India has witnessed a phenomenal growth and high turnover in dairy sector during the last two decades through systematic development, upgradation, procurement and processing capabilities. During the last two years, India experienced the problem of disposing surplus milk solids and also downward trend in procurement prices for milk creating unrest among milk producers. With global milk pricing taking a hit, prospects of export at a competitive rate is a tough task before the Indian dairy industry, in spite of government incentives for promoting exports.

As if surplus milk problem was not enough, the increasing supply of milk analogues and dairy substitutes in Indian markets have started posing a new challenge before the dairy industry. Except for the cost competitiveness offered to consumers for alternatives of dairy products, especially those of fresh drinks based on soya, rice, nuts and seeds, people are just wondering as to why the increasing popularity of dairy analogues is making it difficult for our dairy products to sell. Dairy analogues are food products designed as an alternative to traditional animal derived food stuff. The most commonly known examples of dairy analogues are frozen desserts, butter analogues, dairy dessert analogues, cheese analogues, fermented dairy analogues, yoghurt and dairy dessert analogues. In the analogues category, the composition, texture, rheological properties, sensory and health promoting characteristics are purportedly aligned to natural milk products. Technologically, plant milk substitutes are suspensions of dissolved and disintegrated plant material in water, resembling milk in appearance. Groundnut and soyabean are two major raw materials used for preparation of plant based milk. The nutritional properties of analogues largely depend on the plant source, processing and fortification activities.

Commercialisation of dairy analogues will adversely influence the livelihood of Indian dairy farmers because if dairies were to sell their products at a low price in competition with analogues, the prices payable will not be adequate. Dairy industries have made many representations to the FSSAI to formulate standards and regulations for milk analogues on urgent basis.

The Scientific Panel on Milk and Milk Products of FSSAI is examining this subject. The Indian dairy industries are demanding that the rules on packaging and labeling must be made more stringent to prohibit the manufacturers of dairy analogues from using faulty advertisements and label declarations to save the consumers from exploitation. This is necessary for enabling the dairy sector to continue as the major contributor to the Indian economy.

The dairy alternatives and imitation dairy products have been around the world markets for a long time and many of them are regulated with their own standard of identity. The foundation of dairy alternatives has been the swapping of vegetable oil for milk fat and vegetable proteins for milk proteins to control cost of production. In some instances, formulations still contain dairy ingredients and the products are not dairy free. This is deceptive and unethical. Dairy alternatives in their processed nature make it easier to manipulate the functionality. It may be argued that analogues are associated with low cost but they will never offer the same quality as that obtained from milk. The sellers of the vegetarian or vegan foods make profits by selling their products at a premium price.

The manufacturers of analogues advertise using the health and wellness goals and also suggesting that these products are more sustainable and environmentally safe. In the absence of proper information, the consumers have complex reasons for purchasing alternative dairy products.

It should be mandatory that the label declaration should show to the consumers’ information on what the analogue products do not contain. This will enable the consumers to make decision whether to go for natural milk products or imitation products. The health reasons cited by the manufacturers of the analogues need to be validated on scientific grounds. The reason for lactose intolerance and digestive disorders caused by milk intake in few individuals cannot be used as the single and extraneous criterion for selecting the alternative products.

The demand for soya milk in the western world was initiated by consumers who were intolerant to lactose or cow’s milk allergy and phenylketonuria. In contrast, some overseas population is also allergenic to beverages prepared from nuts. At the same time, soy milk must be prepared under rigid heating conditions to destroy the trypsin inhibitor enzyme present in soybeans to ensure food safety.

Dairy industry must highlight the nutritional and health benefits granted by the natural milk ingredients, besides getting the sensory aspects right without compromising the palatability. Analogues must identify the consumer target groups and the packages must carry the sources of plants and vegetable oils for information of the consumer in bold letters. Innovators of alternative foods have not kept the social and economic considerations associated with dairy foods under Indian conditions. It is significant that a proper understanding of nutritive value of milk protein, milk fat, lactose, vitamin and minerals, is kept in mind against the alternatives involving the willful manipulation of nutrition profiles of dairy analogues. In any case, the natural flavours found in milk and milk products can never be simulated neither the texture replicated in fabricated products.

The change in raw materials and processing will exert a huge influence on taste. Even the slightest change in the base formulation will impact the flavor as the milk ingredients like protein, lactose, milk fat, emulsifiers and other ingredients shall alter flavor profiles. The synthetic flavours can never match with the natural flavor of milk. Even the addition of emulsifiers and stabilizers in frozen novelties cannot make the melt down property as good as in the natural ice-creams. There is also a shift towards the use of high intensity sweeteners in plant based beverages which have their own associated off tastes, as the pure cane sugar provides the best flavor profile. Any technologies that may be applied to help minimize the off flavors associated with plant based products may further deteriorate the product acceptability. No effort can make fermented vegetable decoctions as good as dahi or yoghurt because natural fermentation of milk products is caused by the selected lactic starter cultures. Vegan creamers are generally not as stable to heat as cream obtained from milk. Creamers formulated with soya proteins and nut butter are prone to feathering and flocculation when added to coffee.

Efforts are being made to produce cheese as an alternative dairy analogue but it is because of milk fat and milk proteins, the desirable cheese attributes cannot be produced. Analogues should not be allowed to be blended with natural cheese, processed cheese or cheese spread. The blending of natural cheeses with analogues must be banned. Indian consumers cannot distinguish between natural and blended cheeses even if given on the label. Plant proteins in cheese analogues are associated with their poor elasticity, insufficient hardness, high adhesiveness, poor stretchability and often unacceptable taste. For this reason, the manufacturers of cheese analogues use isolated proteins, casein or a mixture of casein and whey proteins. The dairy industry expects a regulation that public can use to physically differentiate dairy products from non dairy foods.

The European countries have made a decision that milk substitutes are not allowed to be given the name of milk unless the product has been obtained from the mammary secretion. The use of terms like almond milk, cashew milk, soya milk, coconut cream should be replaced with ‘beverages’ as none of these products are the derivatives of mammary secretion. Misuse of label declarations should be considered as a grave act for deceiving the consumers.

In the earlier days of dairy development, efforts were made by the dairy researchers to design some substitutes to dairy products to fill the gap between demand and supply. However, those researches are now irrelevant as we produce more milk than what we can consume.

Frozen dessert category is an important example in which milk fats are substituted with cheap edible palm oil or a mixture of vegetable oils. Cane sugar is substituted with malto-dextrin made from corn, rice or potato starch. Frozen desserts can never be like icecream as they are not exclusively manufactured from milk ingredients. We need to educate our children to choose natural ice cream for enjoyment.

The Indian dairy industry has expressed concern about dairy analogues manufactured and marketed by multi-nationals and several local companies. The dairy firms are abreast of this growing market of dairy analogues in India not only because it will impact farmers’ income but also the health of the young generation. We do not want distorted logos or brand names of established companies to be used for dairy analogues at the restaurants and confectionery shops. Dairy analogues are inferior in quality because of lower digestibility of hydrogenated vegetable oils compared with milk fat. The biological value of vegetable proteins is much lower than milk protein with the former offering low bio-availability of calcium and other minerals. The plant based milk substitutes contain insoluble particles such as protein, starch, fibre and other cellular materials which due to density difference settle down making the product unstable because of the low heat stability. Proteins get denatured at high temperatures making sterilized preparations difficult. This is not the case with milk proteins. Training of consumers for making judicious selection of healthy and nutritious foods would be the responsibility of dairy industries if they were to remain competitive in the market place.