Climate smart milk proteins for an energy efficient cheese production

Research Project, 2020 – 2022

The food sector accounts for around 30% of the world’s total energy consumption and food production is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, where cheese is one of the foods causing highest emissions.

In this project a milk-free alternative to cheese will be developed from plant-based raw material, by biotechnologically produced casein, the main component of cheese. This way the current resource-inefficiency in cheese production can be tackled which will lead to significantly reduced energy need and GHG emissions, whilst providing the Swedish food industry with a novel product. By combining the development of the microbial production host and the biotechnological production process with LCA analysis we expect to develop an energy and GHG efficient casein production process. Together with Cirkulär AB, the constellation forms a focused and
goal-oriented partnership between academia and industry, that is expected to result in an innovative commercial product.