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Dairy: Protein, Flavour and Blurring Category Lines

The pace of change and real innovation in dairy keeps us on our toes here at FoodBev Media and makes for interesting reading on FoodBev.com and in Dairy Innovation magazine. Protein has stolen many of the headlines in the past year and while much attention has been paid to Greek yogurt and to specific protein […]

The pace of change and real innovation in dairy keeps us on our toes here at FoodBev Media and makes for interesting reading on FoodBev.com and in Dairy Innovation magazine.

Protein has stolen many of the headlines in the past year and while much attention has been paid to Greek yogurt and to specific protein heavy launches, such as Powerful Yogurt, the moves in dairy drinks have also been fascinating.

The latest we’ve seen is the launch of Milk2Go Sport by Canada’s Saputo. It is a ready-to-drink, milk-based protein shake with 26 grams of protein – and only 200 calories per 325ml bottle.

As the category moves away from the heavy use of protein associated with serious sports men and women and towards every day consumption, Milk2Go Sport focuses as much on the drink’s ability to dull hunger for those seeking to lose weight, as it does on stimulating muscle repair after workouts.

Several brands spring to mind when you think of protein drinks, with For Goodness Shakes and Core Power taking their share of the headlines over the past couple of years. But more recent launches seem to have caught the rising tide of consumer interest.

Arla Foods’ Wing-Co picks up on the ‘protein for men’ category with its chocolate-flavoured milk drink designed to ‘shoot down hunger fast’ – and its advertising uses the slogan ‘the manly chocolate milk for men with added man’.

Meanwhile, Upbeat, from Volac’s The Good Whey Company, has moved the story on by incorporating real fruit. It is packed in a shapely bottled by UK-based Esterform, with UV protecting sleeve labelling from CCL Decorative Sleeves. It won the best new brand category in the recent Beverage Innovation Awards at Drinktec.

Sometimes, a product comes along which ticks several boxes at once. Earlier this year, I predicted that salted caramel would continue to be a leading flavour in dairy having dominated in many countries through 2012.

California-based Bolthouse Farms recently added a new Salted Caramel Latte, which features 7g of protein, 660mg of potassium and a 30% daily value of calcium, with 130 calories per 8oz serving. It is described as a ‘perfectly protein coffee beverage’ and features only natural flavours, including Arabica coffee and real sea salt.

And from one latte drink to another – although with no protein in sight… Following the successful UK launch of First Milk’s Frumoo under its Lake District Dairy Co brand, the company has recently introduced Caffe Latte – challenging the existing market-leading UHT coffee brands.