America’s appetite for Greek yogurt has skyrocketed over the past decade. But for every container of Greek yogurt consumed, you could fill two or three more with the acid whey it produces. The cover story in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, takes a look at the interesting ways scientists are making use of the byproduct.
America’s appetite for Greek yogurt has skyrocketed over the past decade. But for every container of Greek yogurt consumed, you could fill two or three more with the acid whey it produces. The cover story in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society, takes a look at the interesting ways scientists are making use of the byproduct.
Britt E. Erickson, a senior editor at C&EN, reports that in 2015 more than 770,000 metric tons of Greek yogurt were produced in the U.S., representing nearly 40 percent of the domestic yogurt market. In 2004, it accounted for only 1 to 2 percent of the market. For years, companies paid farmers to spread the acid whey — the liquid byproduct of strained yogurt — on land as fertilizer or to feed it to livestock. But as demand for Greek yogurt ballooned, its makers started working with scientists to develop more economical ways to handle the whey.
Read more at American Chemical Society
Image Credits: American Chemical Society
