Milk and dairy product sales have largely experienced decades of declining and fluctuating volume despite extensive promotional campaigns such as “Everybody Needs Milk,” “Milk. It Does a Body Good,” and “Got Milk?” that positioned milk as a healthy, natural choice associated with fitness and refreshment. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, American fluid milk sales declined from more than 55 billion lb in 2009 to approximately 42.8 billion lb in 2023, reflecting reduced milk consumption over time.
Despite this trend, ingredients derived from milk and whey continue to provide innovative solutions for the food industry. These ingredients deliver functionality, nutrition, and health benefits for consumers across life stages. Milk is a rich source of proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and minerals. Increasingly, milk components—including milk and whey proteins, lipids such as milk fat globule membrane (MFGM), and bioactive peptides—are used to develop products ranging from convenient snacks and infant formula to sports nutrition and foods supporting immune, gut, and cognitive health.
Casein And Whey Proteins
Dairy protein ingredients—including major milk proteins such as casein and whey proteins, along with derived products including milk protein concentrates (MPC), milk protein isolates (MPI), whey protein concentrates (WPC), whey protein isolates (WPI), and whey protein hydrolysates (WPH)—are highly functional, nutritionally valuable ingredients used across food, beverage, and industrial applications. They provide a mild dairy flavor and are incorporated into dairy foods, baked goods, confections, soups, sauces, infant formula, processed meats, prepared foods, and beverages. Milk proteins are valued for their essential amino acid composition and functional properties, including solubility, emulsification, water binding, heat stability, gelling, whipping, and foaming. They also contribute to viscosity and texture development and, together with lactose and other milk components, support flavor and color formation through browning reactions.
Ingredients derived from milk and whey continue to provide innovative solutions for the food industry.
Concentrated milk protein products—including microfiltered milk protein concentrates (MMPC), microfiltered milk protein isolates (MMPI), micellar casein concentrates (MCC), and micellar casein isolates (MCI)—function as flavor enhancers, formulation aids, humectants, emulsifiers, stabilizers, thickeners, and texturizers while supplying high-quality protein. Whey protein concentrates (WPC 30 and WPC 60) and WPI provide gelation in yogurts and puddings, water binding in meat and sausage systems, whipping in toppings and fillings, and emulsification in products such as ice cream, margarine, and mayonnaise. These ingredients are also widely used as protein supplements in sports and medical nutrition products. WPHs, produced through chemical or enzymatic hydrolysis, are used where modified functional or nutritional properties are required.
Additional milk protein ingredients, including α-lactalbumin and β-lactoglobulin, exhibit strong biocompatibility and functional performance. Their solubility, foaming capacity, and heat stability make them suitable for beverage applications and nutritional supplements. α-lactalbumin is incorporated into early-life nutrition formulas, while β-lactoglobulin is widely used as a high-quality protein source in nutritional and sports nutrition products.
Bioactive Peptides
Milk-derived bioactive peptides, including lactoferrin, glycomacropeptide, and whey peptides, exhibit antihypertensive, antidiabetic, antioxidant, antimicrobial, and immunomodulatory effects. Potential applications include food products designed to boost mood, reduce anxiety, provide stress reduction, and stimulate the immune system (Auestad and Layman 2021).
Lactoferrin is an iron-binding glycoprotein isolated from milk, whey, or colostrum. It demonstrates bacteriostatic and bactericidal activity along with antiviral and antifungal properties. Lactoferrin also supports immune modulation and may contribute to preventive and therapeutic responses against SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) (Kell et al. 2020, Gallo et al. 2022). Growing interest in its health benefits has led to expanded production capacity among some dairy ingredient manufacturers.
Other peptides such as glycomacropeptide and whey-derived fractions demonstrate metabolic and immune functionality. Colostrinin, a colostrum-derived, proline-rich polypeptide, has shown neuroprotective and cognitive-support properties and has demonstrated stabilizing effects on cognitive function in Alzheimer’s disease patients (Janusz and Zablocka 2013, Bharadwaj et al. 2013).
Lipids, MFGM, and Phospholipids
Milk lipids consist primarily of triglycerides, mono- and diglycerides, phospholipids, glycolipids, free fatty acids, sterols, fat-soluble vitamins, carotenoids, and flavor compounds. These components contribute to both physical and biological functionality and represent a major dietary energy source. Reported health benefits include support for brain development, immune modulation, and gut health. Functional properties of milk lipid ingredients depend on lipid composition and fatty acid profile. While triglycerides are water insoluble, mono- and diglycerides function as emulsifiers and contribute to aeration, flavor, texture, melting behavior, and sensory quality.
MFGM, composed of a tri-layer structure of polar lipids, glycolipids, and proteins, supports immunological function, gastrointestinal health, and cognitive development. Infant formulas supplemented with bovine MFGM have demonstrated benefits related to neurodevelopment, immune response, and infection defense (Silva et al. 2021). MFGM is increasingly incorporated as an emulsifying and functional ingredient in infant nutrition products.
Milk polar lipids such as sphingomyelin and cerebrosides are important nutrients, particularly during infancy. Sphingomyelin has demonstrated antitumor activity, cholesterol metabolism regulation, and anti-infective properties (Venkat et al. 2024, Kelly et al. 2009). These lipids form stable oil-in-water emulsions and can serve as carriers for bioactive compounds in beverage delivery systems.
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA), naturally present in milk fat and more abundant in pasture-fed dairy systems, has been associated with anticancer, anti-atherosclerotic, antidiabetic, and immune-enhancing effects and improvements in body composition. Fermentation using starter and probiotic cultures can further enhance CLA production in dairy beverages.
Carbohydrates
The primary carbohydrate components of milk include lactose, lactose-rich permeates, and oligosaccharides. Lactose, the principal sugar in milk, is a crystalline carbohydrate that is less sweet and less soluble than sucrose. Functionally, lactose contributes to nonenzymatic browning and caramelization reactions and exhibits humectant properties that help retain moisture in food systems. It also serves as an effective flow agent in dry-mix applications and can act as a carrier for seasonings, enabling uniform distribution and improving adhesion on snack products.
Growing consumer awareness of lactose intolerance has increased demand for lactose-free dairy products. Lactose-free milk and dairy foods are produced either by hydrolyzing lactose into its constituent sugars—glucose and galactose—through addition of the enzyme lactase or by removing lactose using membrane separation technologies such as ultrafiltration or nanofiltration, as well as chromatographic methods including cation-exchange systems. Many dairy processors combine ultrafiltration with ultrapasteurization to produce lactose-free milk products with extended shelf life while maintaining sensory quality.
Milk oligosaccharides are complex carbohydrates composed of three to 10 monosaccharide units, including glucose, galactose, N-acetylglucosamine, fucose, and sialic acid. These compounds demonstrate important biological activities, including prebiotic effects, immune modulation, and inhibition of pathogen adhesion within the infant gastrointestinal tract. Human milk contains 13 core oligosaccharides, collectively referred to as human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). HMOs inhibit the binding of bacterial and viral pathogens or toxins to intestinal epithelial cells and promote beneficial gut microbiota, particularly Bifidobacterium spp. and Lactobacilli. Another important milk-derived oligosaccharide, galactooligosaccharide (GOS), is produced from lactose and provides prebiotic functionality, making it a valuable ingredient in infant formula applications.
Recent advances are expanding the capabilities of dairy processing to enable development of novel ingredients and next-generation products.
Dairy permeate is a byproduct generated during protein removal from milk or whey, resulting in a lactose-rich ingredient produced through ultrafiltration and diafiltration processes. Milk and whey permeates possess a mild, milky, slightly sweet, and lightly salty flavor profile characteristic of whey solids. Functionally, permeates contribute browning and crumb-softening properties in bakery products and can be used for sodium reduction, partial sugar replacement, and flavor enhancement across a range of food applications. Lactose and permeate streams also serve as substrates for production of value-added ingredients, including dietary fibers such as GOS and levulose, as well as reduced-calorie sweeteners such as tagatose and allulose.
Processing Tech Innovations
Traditional processing technologies—including heat treatment, acidification, homogenization, enzymatic modification, and filtration—have long been used to produce milk and dairy products with desirable flavor, texture, nutritional quality, safety, and shelf stability. Recent advances, however, are expanding the capabilities of dairy processing to enable development of novel ingredients and next-generation products.
Emerging technologies such as high-pressure processing, cold plasma, pulsed electric fields, ultrasound, and membrane technologies are increasingly applied to improve functionality, safety, and processing efficiency while preserving product quality (Moschopoulou 2021, Corrillo-Lopez et al. 2021). These approaches allow targeted modification of milk components with reduced thermal impact, supporting improved nutrient retention and functional performance.
Additional innovations include high-pressure homogenization combined with emulsifying salts to reduce casein micelle dissociation and enhance foam stability (Fuchs et al. 2025). Sustainable material development is also advancing, including potential applications of WPI-lignin films as alternatives to conventional plastic packaging for dairy products (Deng et al. 2024). Ingredient functionality improvements have been demonstrated through addition of whey proline-rich peptide hydrolysates to enhance the solubility of milk protein concentrate (Torres-Hernandez et al. 2018).
Other promising emerging technologies include high-pressure jet processing, ultra-shear processing, and millisecond technology, all of which show strong potential for improving functional properties, texture development, and processing efficiency in milk and dairy systems (Voronin et al. 2021).
Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly applied to dairy ingredient development through analysis of complex, large-scale datasets to optimize formulation, texture, and flavor performance. AI tools can reduce research and development costs while accelerating innovation and improving efficiency in designing functional ingredients that target specific health and nutrition goals.
Key applications include predicting ingredient interactions, optimizing sensory characteristics, and enabling rapid analysis of global consumer data to identify emerging trends and preferred ingredients. AI systems also support supplier selection, optimization of microbial strains used in precision fermentation, and improvements in process efficiency and quality control.
Conclusion
Advances in dairy science and processing technologies have expanded understanding of milk constituents and enabled development of innovative dairy ingredients delivering functionality, nutrition, and health benefits across diverse food applications. Emerging technologies—including advanced processing and AI-supported product development—are supporting the creation of sustainable dairy products with improved efficiency, reduced waste, and lower environmental impact.