On this day in vegan history · July 11, 2019
The First Animal-Free Dairy Goes on Sale
The first ice cream made from real dairy protein that never came from a cow went on sale, and sold out in hours.
The facts
- Date
- July 11, 2019
- Product
- Ice cream made from non-animal whey protein
- Company
- Perfect Day, Berkeley, California
- How
- Whey protein brewed by fermentation in microflora, not milked from cows
On July 11, 2019, the Berkeley startup Perfect Day released its first consumer product: a small batch of ice cream. The trick was the protein. Instead of milking a cow, the company brews whey protein by fermentation, feeding sugar to engineered microflora that produce the same molecules found in milk. The result is a dairy product with no animal in the supply chain, aimed squarely at people who miss the taste of the real thing. The launch batch sold out within hours, which said less about ice cream than about how far precision fermentation had come.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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On July 11, 2019, Perfect Day released its first product, an ice cream made from non-animal whey protein.
Wikipedia, entry on Perfect Day
Source: Wikipedia -
The microbiota are then grown in fermentation tanks where they convert a carbohydrate source such as corn syrup into flora-based dairy protein.
Wikipedia, on Perfect Day's technology
Source: Wikipedia
Why it still matters
Perfect Day proved that milk protein could be made without a cow and sold to real customers, opening a lane for dairy that sidesteps the animal entirely. Cream cheese, milk, and protein powder from the same process followed.
Sources
This history is still being written.
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