Summary
- Whey has transformed from a dairy by‑product into a high‑value ingredient, with strong demand across food, nutrition and biotech thanks to its functionality, versatility and stable market value.
- Its uses span multiple sectors: from enhancing texture and nutrition in foods, to delivering health‑boosting bioactives, to serving as a sustainable feedstock for precision fermentation and bioplastic production.
- Whey’s future potential is even broader, with emerging roles in producing animal‑free dairy proteins, creating biodegradable materials and supporting regenerative medicine: showcasing how upcycling whey can fuel a circular, innovation‑driven economy.
Dairy’s gambit to turn a waste product into one of food’s most sought-after ingredients is one of the industry’s smartest achievements in the last 50 years.
Today, high-value proteins such as whey concentrates and isolates are in greater demand than supply can meet – commanding a stable price when other dairy commodities are coming under pressure.
And there’s plenty of headroom for new capacities to be absorbed once they come online in the coming months, thanks to ongoing interest from the food, feed and specialized nutrition sectors.
Whey’s applications span so far and wide that those in the business have plenty of space to pivot if demand in one arena slows down.
From precision fermentation to biofuels, here’s where whey can find applications based on a new scientific review into the dairy protein’s uses.
Functional ingredients
Whey is an essential building block in food manufacture and foodservice, often serving as an emulsifier or fortification agent in various applications.
From giving dressings or ice cream the right consistency, to ensuring baked goods are just soft enough, whey is ideal for improving texture, moisture retention and creaminess.
Whey has also become highly sought-after in protein fortification and across specialized nutrition, functional beverages and sports nutrition.
Health-boosting bioactives
Just as they made a versatile input in food and beverage NPD, whey proteins are equally at home as high-value bioactive ingredients.
Whey contains bioactive peptides with antioxidant, antimicrobial and antihypertensive potential, according to research cited in the review.
For example, cysteine-rich peptides from whey increase glutathione, an important antioxidant.
Meanwhile, consuming whey provides immunoglobulins and lactoferrin, which can bolster immunity and help the body fight off infections.
Processing technologies such as microencapsulation are now making it possible to protect bioactive compounds and improve their delivery in the body. Similarly, whey-derived probiotics can survive longer in the body, or improve their stability.
Precision fermentation feedstock
Whey is a suitable alternative for expensive chemicals such as IPTG (isopropyl b-D-1-thiogalactopyranoside), which is used to trigger gene expression). Whey naturally packs protein, lactose, minerals and vitamins, which makes it an excellent feedstock for yeasts and fungi, with research indicating that whey can replace chemical alternatives because it triggers the same biological pathway needed for expressing genes in engineered microbes.
And it’s not just that: research shows feeding these microbes with whey makes them produce more recombinant proteins and often leads to higher yields than conventional media.
Simply put, whey can be a key raw input into the production of alternative proteins, including animal-free dairy proteins.
Raw material in biotech applications
Whey can be an affordable and environmentally-friendly ingredient in biotechnology. Notably, it can be used in the production of lactic acid, bioplastics, bioethanol and other chemicals.
It can also be transformed into biopolymers to create biodegradable plastics like PHAs and PHB, which are suitable for packaging applications.
Whey can also be used in regenerative medicine, for example as a substrate in in vitro protein synthesis systems, enabling rapid and controlled protein production without the need for living cells.
The future: Closing the loop
Whey is already positioned as a value-added, upcycled dairy by-product – but its future could be even ‘greener’, given the ingredient’s use potential beyond food and nutrition.
From affordable feedstock to concoct animal-free dairy proteins in precision fermentation labs, to a raw material for creating sustainable packaging materials and even medical applications, whey’s potential as a key input is bound to generate buzz far beyond food and beverage.
As the review’s authors conclude: “The use of whey in biotechnological applications for producing bioproducts represents a convergence of scientific and technological advances that favor the transformation of waste into a valuable resource.”
Source:
Recent Biotechnological Applications of Whey: Review and Perspectives
Authors: Raúl J. Delgado-Macuil, Beatriz Perez-Armendariz, Gabriel Abraham Cardoso-Ugarte, Shirlley E. Martinez Tolibia, and Alfredo C. Benítez-Rojas
Published: Fermentation 2025, 11, 217
