Demand for premium protein is reshaping global dairy market dynamics. Processors are increasingly directing milk into cheese production to capture stronger margins while expanding whey streams to supply high-value ingredients such as whey protein concentrate (WPC) and whey protein isolate (WPI).
Demand for these products has surged in recent years as consumers embrace high-protein foods and beverages, from everyday yogurts and ready-to-drink shakes to premium sports nutrition products, driven by growing interest in health, wellness and active lifestyles.
The rapid growth has tightened supply, with some processors reporting order books filled months in advance and buyers competing to secure volumes in an increasingly constrained market.
Industry players are investing in plant expansion and efficiency enhancements to unlock additional volumes, but such projects may take years to become operational. But according to Rachel McGinness, RD&E program leader at Ecolab, whey processors can squeeze more capacity out of existing membrane systems, clean-in-place (CIP) cycles, pasteurisers and dryers.
“Most customers are capacity-constrained, particularly at older facilities where membrane systems were installed years ago,” she says. “At commissioning, they may have been running at 60% capacity. Today, many are operating those systems at full capacity.
“But there’s only so much surface area that we can use to filter out and concentrate up that protein.”
When it comes to processing highly-concentrated whey protein ingredients, it’s not just the membranes that are doing the work.
“To produce WPC80 or WPI90, processors typically need an evaporator-dryer process and must also pasteurise that protein. So even if we save time in the membrane system, we may still have a bottleneck at the pasteuriser or the evaporator stage.”
Processing chain delays could result in missed opportunities, which is troubling for an industry that already faces stretched resources.
“Most plants are running around the clock, so we’re talking about 20-plus hours of runtime on membrane systems and other pieces of equipment,” McGinness says.
How whey processors can increase capacity without plant expansion
CIP protocols therefore must form part of the production process. “If we don’t clean well, we are not going to run well,” she adds. “With membranes specifically, they are hydraulic systems: once pressure builds up to the point, you have to clean.”
Improving cleaning practices can save time and increase production efficiencies. “We’ve seen anywhere from 15 minutes per CIP time savings, all the way to 45 minutes per CIP,” she said.
“When you aggregate all of that on capacity-constrained lines, you can see hundreds of hours of time savings that customers can turn back into production and be able to process more whey throughout the course of the year.
“Even if you can optimise 15 minutes, that might be huge on a line that you could turn around 15 minutes faster, especially if it’s a large system and you have significant flow going in. And if you can find additional time - say, you get 45 minutes back – that might also get a customer back an extra vat of cheese.”
The key takeaway here is to stop treating CIP as downtime, but rather as part of the production process.
How AI and digital tools can improve whey processing efficiency
According to McGinness, emerging technology can significantly help unlock efficiencies within existing systems.
Monitoring and artificial intelligence tools are already making a difference by eliminating the need for manually recorded cleaning logs, she said.
“Digital insights and AI are making data from every CIP and production run visible, allowing us to generate valuable insights and help customers take direct action. Previously, you’d have to comb through days or weeks of production and CIP logs just to identify a trend.
“It can take hours to find a problem, and by that time, you’d have lost production time. Access to data allows processors to take action ahead of time and see what the next wash is going to look like.”
But adoption of digital technology isn’t quite so widespread in the sector – yet.
“We are probably in this middle ground where some processors are really interested in adopting this digital technology and are really looking forward to using AI. And then, we also have some that rely on manual logs and procedures.”
For those who already use monitoring systems to gather and analyse data, a leap to AI isn’t so large – and in fact, could be a worthwhile next investment if the goal is boosting efficiency.
“If the data is already there and it’s just a case of integrating and leveraging some of the AI functionality, I think that from a cost to benefit ratio makes a lot of sense.”
Whey processing cheat sheet
- Look at each CIP individually and identify where time can be saved.
- Shorten CIP turnaround where possible while maintaining cleaning effectiveness.
- Improve membrane flux during production through better membrane care and optimisation.
- Consider adding membrane loops to existing systems to expand capacity (requires hydraulic redesign).
- Use digital monitoring and AI to identify pressure, flow or cleaning issues before production time is lost.
