Where is the global dairy industry headed? In this episode of The Milk Check, we’re joined by Andy Powers, vice president of technical services at the American Dairy Products Institute (ADPI), alongside members of the Jacoby team, to explore the future of dairy. Together, we tackle emerging trends, market forces, and opportunities for dairy proteins, fats, and other dairy products in the next 5 to 10 years.

• Emerging trends: The role of GLP-1 drugs in driving future global demand


• Dairy vs. plant proteins: How the structure of dairy and plant proteins differ and what that means for nutrition and health


• The rise of butterfat: U.S. butterfat and the role of exports in future consumption


• Cheese’s global opportunity: How cheese production is ramping up to meet international demand


• Dairy co-products: Innovations in whey protein, lactose, and milk protein isolates to address shifting market needs

From health-conscious consumers to industrial applications, we examine how dairy is evolving to stay competitive.

Plus, check out The ADPI 2023 ADPI Dairy Products Utilization & Production Trends report here and the ADPI Ingredient Resource Center here.

Don’t miss this comprehensive look at the future of dairy with insights from Andy and the Jacoby team, including Ted Jacoby, III, CEO & President, cheese, butter & dry ingredients; Josh White, vice president, dairy ingredients; Diego Carvallo, director of dry dairy ingredient trading, and Tristan Suellentrop, sales associate,

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Into (with music): Welcome to the Milk Check, a podcast from TC Jacob and Company, where we share market insights and analysis with dairy farmers in mind.

Ted Jacoby, III (T3): Hello, everyone, and welcome to this month’s episode of the Milk Check. Today, we are excited to have Andy Powers, vice president of technical services for the American Dairy Products Institute, joining us. Joining us as well, we have some of our usual suspects. Josh White, vice president of Dairy Ingredients, Diego Carvallo, our Director of International Sales for Dairy Ingredients, and Tristan Suellentrop, our sales associate and resident 20-something on our sales team. Guys, thank you, and Andy, excited to have you with us. Thanks for joining us.

Our topic today is: what’s the future of dairy? Where do we think demand is going to grow globally in the dairy industry? What are the components that this industry is going to see the greatest demand and opportunity for as we look out over the next 5 to 10 years? Andy, I’ll start by saying we just recently had a five 10 year vision conversation within our organization, and one of the things that we spent a lot of time talking about was how dairy proteins, specifically as you look at the way the developing countries and the way their diets are changing and growing and developing when you look at the aging populations of many parts of the world when you look at the addition of medicines like Ozempic and Wegovy, protein is just going to become a bigger and a bigger part of the nutritional profile of what human beings eat.

I’ve got two boys in their twenties, and they are much healthier eaters than I ever was when I was in my twenties. That means they’re consuming a lot more dairy protein.

Andy Powers: Right.

T3: What are your thoughts, and where do you think dairy proteins fit in that space?

Andy Powers: First and foremost, because I’ve worked for the American Dairy Products Institute, you’re going to hear me talk about dairy. I drank the Kool-Aid a number of years ago. I believe in dairy’s value proposition, and I believe in its strengths in terms of nutrient density and complete nutrition. You talked about some of the driving forces that are going to influence demand for dairy in the future. We’ve got population growth as the baseline talked about an aging population. I think that’s significant. The ongoing current modernization or GDP growth meaning that people can transition from the most commodity-oriented and cheapest foods up the value chain and start to consume according to their preferences instead of their absolute needs and availabilities. All those things, I think, are supportive of dairy, and then you add some icing on that cake. You mentioned GLP-1. Everybody’s talking about this class of drugs, the GLP-1 agonists.

Ozempic is the one that’s maybe most consumer-forward. It’s off-label use for designer weight loss. I guess I would say it needs to be accompanied by the consumption of high-quality protein or loss of muscle mass as a problem. And so all those things, I think, speak to a higher protein diet in the future. I think if you follow the money, there’s been a lot of US investment in plants to process milk and turn that milk into, among other things, high-protein foods and ingredients. So all of those signs, I think, are positive. It’s just a matter for dairy to flex its muscles, showing its adaptability, and overcome some of the challenges to have a pretty bright future. That’s my view in a nutshell.

Josh: You spoke of the GLP-1 drugs. Obviously, that’s topical, but the average person doesn’t really understand why that drives additional protein consumption, maybe in a short way. Can you go into a bit more depth? Is this medical advice by people who are put on this drug that they need to really, really increase their protein consumption? Are they steering people to dairy, or is that just the popular solution?

Andy Powers: Yeah, great question, Josh. To be honest, I’m not sure that I could tease out the difference between people who are accidentally going in the direction of dairy and people who are being instructed to do so. And I’m certainly not a dietician. I’m not a physician. So whether or not the science says that dairy is the best, the one and only answer for the particular consequences associated with the GLP-1 drugs, I couldn’t say for sure. But what I can say is that on the label, it was originally developed to help people manage diabetes, right? A follow-on consequence of appetite suppression is reduced caloric intake. And without balancing that reduction in taking in calories with some sort of improvement in the quality of the calories that you take in or a deliberate choice to go after a high protein density diet, much like a sports nutrition sort of a diet, the consequence is loss of muscle mass. That’s definitely undesirable whether you are on-label or off-label for the drugs. And the good news is whether or not medicine is pointing people to dairy, dairy’s nutritional value proposition is very much aligned with those needs. If you’re going to try to build muscle or retard the loss of muscle, then dairy is far and away the best choice at this time.

T3: Andy, why dairy instead of plant proteins? What makes dairy the better choice of protein relative to some of the other protein options out in the marketplace these days?

Andy Powers: Yeah, it’s a couple of things. I’m going to start by just saying complete nutrition and what that means for us as animals consuming protein, in particular, is that we have to take in those essential amino acids or those indispensable amino acids to support our own protein synthesis. And that’s not just about muscle, it’s about hair, it’s about bone, it’s about connective tissue, so virtually all of the structural things that make us have a substantial amount of protein associated with them. We build those things through synthesis pathways, and that means that, in part, we can make some of those building blocks to create muscle, to create connective tissue with our own biomechanical machinery, but we have to take in some of those, and those are those essential amino acids or those indispensable amino acids. So when you start to look at foodstuff, what makes dairy special is that it has the densest concentration of, let’s say, especially muscle synthesis supporting amino acids of any foodstuff out there.

And so far and away, it is the best choice when it comes to taking in quality calories that your body can readily transform into its substance, especially muscle. So, among those essential amino acids, and there are nine of them, you hear a lot about BCAAs. So, if you’re going to buy a protein powder at the store, maybe it’s saying on-label contains five grams per serving of BCAA. So those are branch-chain amino acids. We are mammals; cows are mammals. So, what cows are producing is very much aligned with what we need to take in. Dairy is very high in those branch-chain amino acids. It’s the densest of the essential amino acids and contains high levels of those branch chain amino acids. So we’re talking about valine, leucine, and isoleucine, and nothing better than that cocktail for us to take in and then turn into healthy tissue.

T3: And so when comparing dairy proteins to many plant proteins, it’s the lack of those BCAAs and plant proteins that makes it harder for the human body to synthesize a lot of those plant proteins successfully at the same level of intake at the same efficiency.

Andy Powers: That’