Guest Post: How Natural Ingredients Are Driving Growth of Clean-Label Cheese Alternatives – vegconomist

Louisa Parrillo is category marketing lead for dairy, alternatives and emerging markets at Ingredion, driving strategy, innovation and team capability. With 20 years of global commercial experience in consumer goods, she is completing an MBA in Leadership at Warwick Business School. Louisa is proud to have led growth and learning initiatives in the dairy industry and champions working parents and caregivers within the Women in Ingredion network. She is passionate about delivering sustainable, affordable innovation to help make healthy, tasty and nutritious food more accessible in the markets that need it most.

Dairy alternatives have driven one of the biggest changes to the packaged food and beverage landscape over the past decade, with around a quarter of European consumers now regularly purchasing dairy alternatives as a normal part of their shopping. In this guest post, Louisa examines the key trends in dairy alternative products, the emergence of the hybrid-dairy category, and the innovative ingredients helping manufacturers deliver on modern consumer preferences. 

The global dairy alternatives market reached $30.96 billion in 2024 and is predicted to triple by 2034, with a healthy CAGR of 11.70%. Crucially, this demand can be attributed to more than just the rise in veganism. While some 3% of consumers in Europe are vegan, 27%, nine times as many people, now follow a ‘flexitarian’ diet, driven by the desire for a healthier lifestyle.

This has implications for the ingredients used in dairy-alternative products. Especially given 79% of global consumers say they want to recognise the ingredients, with 62% saying they always or usually read the back and side of the product. 

Alongside clean-label, consumers are also looking for dairy alternatives that are minimally processed and high in protein. This is valuable knowledge for manufacturers looking to gain competitive advantage with their plant-based cheese, milk and yoghurt alternatives.

Clean label

One of the key challenges in clean-label formulation is developing cost-effective recipes that use only a short list of recognisable ingredients. One of the hardest components to get right to achieve this is the use of stabilisers, because the natural emulsions found in milk and other dairy products are extremely difficult to mimic.

One solution has been to develop a customised functional blend of stabilisers that create dairy-like textures that are stable over the product’s shelf life. This often involves using two or more hydrocolloids such as xanthan gum, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan or gellan gum. The challenge here is that these ingredients are not really recognisable outside the food industry, highlighting the need to prioritise ingredients most consumers will recognise.

One ingredient that meets this need is citrus fibre. Derived from upcycled citrus peels, Ingredion’s FIBERTEX^® CF 500 & FIBERTEX^® CF 100 citrus fibres are cost-effective, add fibre while delivering superior viscosity, texture and mouthfeel which is what consumers prefer. With minimal flavour or colour impact, these fibres enhance dairy-like creaminess. Their gelling properties improve emulsion and texture stability over shelf-life, making them ideal alternatives to traditional stabilisers.

These citrus fibres also support popular on-pack claims, including “derived from natural sources,” “plant-based,” and “high in dietary fibre”, all recognisable claims and widely understood by consumers. Additionally, with 67% also stating that sustainability is an important factor in driving food choice, the fact they’re made using upcycled ingredients makes them especially appealing.

Hydrocolloid gums in dairy alternatives are increasingly being replaced by clean-label starches. Minimally processed functional native starches work well as texturisers. A good example is Ingredion’s NOVATION Indulge 2940^® starch, which is used as a texturiser in vegan cheeses.

Derived from waxy maize, this corn starch offers process tolerance, making it capable of withstanding a variety of treatments without compromising product quality, performance or safety. It also offers thermoreversibility, the property of a substance to be reversed when exposed to heat. Being soft-set, it closely replicates the behaviour of dairy cheese; it can be grated when cold and melts evenly when heated, providing the stretchability that consumers expect. Crucially, it can also simply be listed as ‘starch’ on labels.

Clean-label texturisers play a key role in formulating dairy alternatives with short lists of recognisable ingredients, enhancing perceived naturalness. Beyond texture and labels, consumers are looking for dairy alternatives with good protein intake. 

Protein intake

Protein contributes to the growth and maintenance of muscle mass. This impacts everyone from fitness enthusiasts to general health-conscious consumers. Given dairy’s traditional role as a primary protein source, consumers expect comparable protein levels from dairy alternatives.

While plant proteins don’t offer the same level of digestibility of dairy proteins, dairy alternatives can still deliver similar overall levels of protein, with the bonus of being cholesterol-free and typically lower in saturated fat.

Dairy hybrids

A growing trend in food and beverage today is hybrid dairy, which combines real dairy with plant-based ingredients. These products, including hybrid milks, yoghurts, cheeses and spreads, offer the nutritional benefits and indulgent taste of dairy, but with reduced amounts of animal-derived ingredients, making them ideal for flexitarian consumers.

Hybrid products are formulated by blending dairy and plant-based ingredients to deliver an indulgent, familiar texture that consumers associate with dairy products. However, despite the fact that 70% of consumers say texture is important to them , it can be challenging to replicate dairy taste and texture.

The different textures found in dairy foods like milk, cream, cheese and yoghurt, come from the combination of milk proteins and fats, particularly casein. However, plant-based proteins have traditionally suffered from undesirable flavours including bitter off-notes and dark colours, restricting their formulation potential, especially in applications where sugar reduction or a light colour is desired.

However, recent innovations in plant-based dairy analogues have overcome these challenges. For example, Ingredion’s VITESSENCE^® Pulse Pea Protein Isolates contain at least 80% protein, are derived from yellow peas and support clean-label, soy-free formulations.

As well as helping to achieve the desired nutritional profile, these protein solutions offer emulsification, water-holding capacity, and gelation properties that are essential for achieving desirable textures in dairy-free or hybrid products like cheeses. 

As demand for dairy alternatives and hybrid products grows, ingredient innovation remains a key source of competitive advantage. By leveraging natural, recognisable ingredients such as citrus fibres, clean-label starches and plant-based proteins, manufacturers can deliver alternative dairy products with appealing textures, nutritional profiles and sustainability credentials.