Identifying consumer trends and generating new, innovative dairy products to meet these demands provides opportunities for increased dairy consumption. Read all about these four new dairy products and how the ideas for them came about.
Good Culture Probiotic Milk
Getting probiotics into your diet can now be as easy as pouring a glass of milk. Probiotic products and supplements might not be something you already buy or always have in your fridge, but now you can buy them in milk and drink probiotics every single day.
Good Culture Probiotic Milk comes in 2% and whole milk varieties, contains live active probiotic cultures and is lactose-free.
“People today are looking for products that offer immunity benefits and probiotics that give digestive health benefits, so this is a really nice combination of the benefits consumers are really seeking,” says Rachel Kyllo, senior vice president of marketing and innovation at Dairy Farmers of America (DFA). “We decided to partner with Good Culture because they are a strong brand that does a nice job communicating probiotics and appeals to a younger consumer. So, as we wanted to make milk a little more modern and appealing, we felt the Good Culture brand would give the product that credibility.”
The probiotic milk tastes just like regular, lactose-free milk and is the first extended shelf-life milk with probiotic cultures, making it unique and the only one like it in the marketplace.
Knowing that probiotics are a sought-after benefit, DFA has been working on this product for a number of years to figure out how to incorporate them into an extended shelf-life product.
“This product has 60 days of shelf life, and there was a challenge in formulating and developing a product where the cultures remained viable throughout the whole shelf life,” Kyllo says. “Also, when a product is processed for extended shelf life it’s really important to keep bacteria out, so we needed to make sure that the good probiotic bacteria got in and any kind of other bacteria didn’t. So, it took some technical work from our research and design team to figure it out and deliver exactly what we needed in the product.”
Because the development process was lengthy, it was really exciting for Kyllo to finally see and taste the finished milk product.
“I’m really proud of our innovation and research and development teams for being able to pull it all together and launch such an on-trend and contemporary milk product,” Kyllo says.
Good Culture probiotic milk can currently be found up and down the East Coast in Publix, Harris Teeter and Weis retail stores and will hopefully be sold nationally in the future.
Spylt caffeinated chocolate milk
Don’t cry over "spilt" milk – drink Spylt caffeinated milk. Spylt is a dairy-based chocolate energy drink that is shelf stable, high in protein, low in sugar and lactose-free. It includes nutrients, such as calcium, B vitamins, potassium and vitamin D all in a delicious energy drink.
“I’ve always loved chocolate milk,” says Spylt founder Josh Mendenhall. “I throw one back almost every single day, but I was also drinking a lot of caffeinated drinks, specifically sodas, for that little pick-me-up. I then decided, 'Why can’t these be together in one?' So, I had this idea to add caffeine to a really good-tasting chocolate milk.”
Photo courtesy of Spylt.To bring his idea to life, Mendenhall worked with different dairy partners, including DFA, to learn about making dairy products, the different ingredient suppliers and co-manufacturers, as well as different flavor-formulation houses to get an amazing taste that people would love. Mendenhall says the hardest part of the process was figuring out how to put milk in an aluminum can and make it shelf stable.
“I remember the first can I got because all I wanted to do is drink caffeinated chocolate milk. I tasted it and thought, ‘Oh my gosh this is really good,’ and ‘I can’t believe I’m finally drinking this product,’” Mendenhall says. “It was awesome for me to say we were able to create this product that tastes really good, checks all the boxes around the nutritional profile we were going for and only has 160 calories.”
Mendenhall says there are a lot of options for people with active lifestyles to buy protein shakes and chocolate milk as a post-workout drink, but none of them are caffeinated. Spylt comes in two variations differing in the amount of caffeine and is available for purchase on their website.
Kemps smooth cottage cheese
Kemps, a farmer-owned brand of DFA, recently introduced a first-of-its-kind smooth cottage cheese for kids with a creamy texture, no curds, and no artificial colors or high fructose corn syrup.
“Consumers are looking for products with lots of great, high-quality protein and not much sugar. Cottage cheese delivers that and is so on-trend for what consumers are looking for. Especially for kids, it’s the perfect combination,” Kyllo says. “So, we asked, ‘How do we take the nutrition of cottage cheese and put it into a product form kids would love?’ We know that kids don’t like things with lumps in them. So, we thought if we could take all the wonderfulness of cottage cheese and smooth it out, it would be something kids would love.”
Photo courtesy of Dairy Farmers of America.The smooth cottage cheese comes in a four-pack of single-serve cups and contains 10 grams of protein in each serving, which is over twice the amount of protein per ounce as most kids' yogurts. Made with 4% whole milk, the product is blended with real fruit and comes in three different flavors, including mixed berry, strawberry and strawberry banana.
“Those are strong selling flavors in kids’ yogurt, so we knew they would be the right flavors for this product,” Kyllo says. “We also decided to license with equities from Hasbro that kids know and love. The packages have Peppa Pig, PJ Masks and Transformers on them to target kids ages 2-11. Those three equities we felt do a nice job spanning that age range.”
The biggest challenge in creating the product was getting the texture right.
“We’ve got a really talented research and development team that spent a lot of time trialing different ways to smooth out the curd and getting it completely smooth to a consistency that kids would absolutely love,” Kyllo says.
The smooth cottage cheese for kids is widely available in 2,500 stores across the country, with the largest retail customer being Walmart.
True Scoops ice cream
What if making homemade ice cream was as easy as premade muffin mix? Good news – it is with True Scoops pint-sized ice cream mix. In an easy five-minute prep process, pour the ice cream mix into a bowl, add a cup of half and half milk and cream, and mix. Once blended, pour the mixture back into the pint container it came in and freeze. Then, enjoy your frozen homemade ice cream.
True Scoops is a women-owned company that creates an easy, fun experience for customers to make ice cream at home. The company offers a wide range of products, including vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice cream, as well as hot fudge and salted butterscotch sauce.
Photo courtesy of True Scoops.Founders Kelly Williamson and Shelly Marshall are both ice cream makers by trade who met at a Penn State ice cream course.
“During the pandemic, I was making homemade ice cream with my kids, and it turned out to be so disastrous," Marshall says. “I realized how complex and long making ice cream from scratch is. At the end of the day when everyone was exhausted, I was like, ‘Why hasn’t anyone ever come up with a Betty Crocker-style product where you only have to add one ingredient and you don’t need an ice cream maker to make fresh ice cream?’”
Together, Marshall and Williamson spent several months creating and perfecting a powdered product.
“It was a lot of trial and error, getting the balance right, and making sure it tasted, acted and looked just like real ice cream,” Williamson says. “A business mentor of ours tried the finished product and said, ‘This tastes like a true scoop of ice cream’ and that’s how we named our business.”
“When they sent us our first real pouches of the mix, you would have thought I won a brand-new car,” Williamson says. “I ran downstairs, and I grabbed that package because it was so exciting to see the new product come to life. Ice cream is a nostalgic treat we all know and love so much, and to have it taste good was a really rewarding feeling.”
Marshall says this is the first ice cream mix on the market where the ingredients are the same as a traditional pint of ice cream. To make the powdered ice cream, you only need to add one ingredient – half and half milk and cream. Because of this, it doesn’t taste chalky like competitors who use powdered sugar, cocoa powder or vanilla powder.
Additionally, because the ice cream mix is dry, it has a long shelf life. Shipping frozen ice cream can be expensive, due to the dry ice, special packaging, insulation and 24-hour delivery requirements.
“It also works in our favor from a business perspective because a lot of our sales come from corporate gifting, subscription boxes and gift box companies,” Williamson says. “The fact that they can gift ice cream to clients, staff, friends or family really lets us stand out from all the rest because we're shippable and lightweight.”
True Scoops can be purchased from their website, Amazon and a variety of independent retailers.
