If you’re buying protein-rich foods or supplements, there’s a good chance that protein came from a Wisconsin cheesemaker.
Often used as a post-workout protein boost or when taking weight loss medication, demand for whey has skyrocketed in recent years. As the national leader in whey production, Wisconsin accounts for about one-third of U.S. whey production. But while this increased demand is a big opportunity for Wisconsin cheesemakers overall, small farms are having more difficulty cashing in.
Drew Dawson, freelance writer for Milwaukee Magazine, wrote about Wisconsin’s whey economy for this March's issue. He joins Lake Effect’s Sam Woods to discuss how whey is related to dairy farmers, why the product is in demand and why some farmers benefit more than others.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity
Sam Woods: Whey was originally popular with bodybuilders a few decades ago, but now has a more general audience. Can you describe how this changed?
Drew Dawson: Ten years ago, you saw protein powders and things like that at GNC and bodybuilders and athletes were using it to build muscle. But since then everyone realized, ‘Maybe I actually need some protein.' So if you see food that has 16 grams of protein in this, 20 grams of protein in that, whether it's protein bar or something else, a lot of times that is coming from powdered whey that is created through the cheesemaking process.
Recently if you've been following the news, GLP-1s might have been something you've come across. Those are weight loss drugs that you might have seen more in common now. But as part of that, not only are you losing body fat, you're also losing muscle mass. So a lot of doctors right now are seeing that and saying, ‘You need to add more protein to your diet.’ One of the easiest ways to do that is whey protein. That is not the only reason we're seeing more of it now, but it is one of the big players.
Turning to the supply side of this, given that all these different types of people are interested in supplementing their diet with whey, how important is it to a cheesemaker's bottom line these days?
Jumping back in time, whey was a waste byproduct. It was something thrown away by most cheesemakers, if not all cheesemakers. Now, 95% of cheesemakers turn whey into a profit. So it is a huge revenue driver, and that's because you can turn it into this protein so the value just skyrocketed once that was discovered. Initially, you could turn it into sweet whey, which is about 12% protein. Now companies are able to do 80-90% with new technology, and there is a lot of value in that.
One example I had in the story was a cheese producer, Cedar Grove. Their separator went down in the fall for three weeks. In that three-week period, just based on whey, their overall bottom line lost 10 to 15% of total revenue that they were usually are expected to see. So it's definitely very lucrative.
Are all cheesemakers able to cash in on this rise in demand for whey equally?
No, that's the unfortunate part of this. Whereas, you know, this is a great thing for dairy farmers overall and we cannot forget that, it is not equal across the board. When a big cheesemaker is producing everything on site and can use all its machinery to turn it into 80-90% whey, it's getting all the value for that. The smaller ones can't do that, unfortunately. They often can’t afford the machinery on-site, so they then have to ship the whey byproduct out in order to process it to sell. So they're paying that high price for that milk initially, which includes the financial potential of the whey, but they are not getting that full value back because they pay extra to turn it into a final product. So they can pay to ship it out and get some value back from what they can turn into whey, but they are losing money in that process. Or they can dispose of it, which is also expensive. So, they're caught in a tough spot because they're losing money either way, it’s just a matter of losing less.
