Giving Compass' Take:

• Tove Danovich explains how the excess whey created by the dairy industry presents problems - and opportunities for social entrepreneurs to use the byproduct to create new value in the form of vodka, beer, oil, and more. 

• How can entrepreneurs help overcome some of the challenges facing small dairy farmers including storage and transportation? How can funders and/or impact investors help facilitate the process? 

• Learn how social entrepreneurs can maximize their impact. 

By now, you may have heard the news: The United States has too much cheese on its hands. This country has long been the world’s most prolific cheesemaker, cranking out 5 million metric tons in 2017 alone—twice what Germany, the distant runner-up, produced that year. And though Americans love dairy products, consuming an average of three pounds of cheese per person every month, we’re still making cheese faster than we can eat it—and faster than we can export it, too.

For every wheel of cheese dairies produce, they make a lot more whey, the watery cheese liquid you’ve seen in freshly opened containers of yogurt. All that whey has to go somewhere, and the matter of its disposal and reuse have become intractable problems for the industry. A pound of cheese generates nine pounds of whey.

Large cheesemakers have processing facilities that can convert whey into value-added ingredients like whey protein powder.

The very largest plants generate enough whey to justify using a biodigester, a hulking “mechanical stomach” that can break whey down into biogas, which can then be used for electricity.

Hatch and other small-scale cheesemakers typically dispose of their whey however they can: by spreading it on their fields, or feeding it to animals. But while whey can act as a fertilizer, applying too much can pollute waterways, killing fish and other aquatic creatures.

Juan Guzman, who has a Ph.D from Cornell University in biological and environmental engineering, started a company called Capro-X which will build and sell equipment that turns acid whey into bio-oil. He expects that this bio-oil could be used to replace some products currently made out of palm oil.

Oregon State’s Lisbeth Goddick is working on research that may help small manufacturers find ways to turn whey into vodka.

Meanwhile, on the East Coast, Samuel Alcaine, an assistant professor of dairy fermentations at Cornell University (and an ex-brewer) is working on another tipsy solution to the influx of whey. Ultimately Alcaine was able to create a beer made entirely from whey.

Read the full article about social entrepreneurship opportunities by Tove Danovich at The New Food Economy.