Flora-based fat: Perfect Day expands to develop vegan milk lipids

21 Nov 2019 --- Perfect Day is continuing to close the gap between vegan and animal-derived foods, with the US start-up set to use its animal-free process to make real milk fat. The company plans to have a marketable prototype before the end of 2020, aiming to support commercial launches in 2021. This will be via partnerships spanning different product categories and will be available through several international channels. This move into fat is driven by the success and functional applications of its flora-based dairy protein. Perfect Day has been broadening its technology portfolio, revolving around the idea of harnessing flora to efficiently and flexibly convert plant carbohydrates into other nutrients.

The company currently uses a fermentation process – similar to the manufacture of vitamins and amino acids – to create proteins that are identical to those found in cow’s milk. By adding genes essential to producing milk protein to Trichoderma – a type of microflora – the dairy flora ferments plant sugar into whey and casein. This gives food products the nutrition, texture and taste of conventional dairy, according to the company. Earlier this year, it launched a limited-edition ice cream using the proteins. 

The same basic approach and infrastructure Perfect Day uses to make protein can also be used to make fats. This will bring the company significantly closer to creating a dairy milk that is “kinder and greener” by circumventing the environmental and ethical issues surrounding rearing animals. The founders, Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, note that animal fats are very different from plant fats. Accordingly, they anticipate that the next major bottleneck for product quality will be capturing the complexity of animal fats.

The founders, Ryan Pandya and Perumal Gandhi, note that animal fats are very different from plant fats.“Animal fats are imbued with beautifully complex flavor profiles, and perhaps more importantly, they have structure. You’ve probably noticed that things like lard or butter are solid at room temperature and melt smoothly as you heat them up. Very few plant fats can solidify, and they have their own issues,” they note. 

While coconut and palm oil can both solidify, they have intensive supply chains and much simpler flavor profiles than those found in animal fats. The founders highlight the irony of combining sustainable proteins combined with “fats and oils grown in former rainforests and shipped halfway across the world,” and say that they were inspired to find a better way. 

“We’re a 21st-century company – we want to anticipate future threats to global supply chains early enough to take action and not wait around until it’s too late. We think we can create better flavors while addressing a potential future scenario where products powered by alternative proteins start to put pressure on the planet through coconut and palm crops,” the founders highlight.

This move comes at a time when consumers are increasingly seeking animal-free options. Innova Market Insights highlights a 68 percent average annual growth in food and beverage launches with a “plant-based” claim (Global, CAGR 2014 to 2018). Additionally, the market analyst notes that two-thirds of global consumers are looking for products with simple ingredients, meaning that this launch could allow consumers to avoid the long ingredient lists typical of some dairy substitutes. 

Edited by Katherine Durrell