Cultivated Whole Cow’s Milk Could Soon Be Available In The US

In a world first, a Boston-based startup has created whole milk using mammalian cell culture, with plans for a trial launch in 2026.

UnReal Milk, made by Brown Foods, is thought to be identical to milk from cows at a molecular level. The milk is undergoing independent testing by the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, according to Forbes. Tests show that UnReal Milk contains the same dairy proteins, and Brown Foods says it has the same fats and carbohydrates found in cow’s milk.

Because it’s structurally the same as cow’s milk, UnReal Milk can be turned into other dairy products in the same way as conventional milk. Dr. Richard Braatz, a Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT who serves on Brown Foods’ Scientific Advisory Board, told Forbes that the “technology can be scaled up further using bioreactor systems to produce mass volumes of milk for the human consumption.”

“What makes this breakthrough remarkable is its scalability,” he added. “This technology can be scaled to meet global demand while delivering a solution that is sustainable and resource-efficient.”

Cultivated meat has made some advances to market recently. Regulatory approval was granted to cultivated chicken in the US in 2023, and in the UK for companion animals in 2024. Cultivated meat is already available to consumers in Hong Kong and Singapore too. But cultivated dairy has yet to overcome regulatory barriers. UnReal Milk could be the first to do so.

Why cultivated milk?

Dairy cows — yadamons – stock.adobe.com Conventional dairy is bad for cows and the environment

Brown Foods says UnReal Milk offers a cruelty-free, low-carbon way of producing milk. It claims that UnReal Milk emits 82 percent fewer greenhouse gases than conventional dairy, uses 90 percent less water, and 95 percent less land. On the UnReal Milk website, dairy’s ethical problem of separating calves from their mothers is also addressed head on. In one cartoon, calves are pictured crying for their “mumma” while people drink the milk meant for them. In a second cartoon, the calves and their mother are happily together on their “forever vacation” after people switch to drinking UnReal Milk instead.

Dairy has a significant environmental footprint. Animal agriculture contributes around a third of all anthropogenic methane emissions, with cows being the biggest source. According to one analysis, the emissions attributable just to Dairy Farmers of America are equal to those of all the UK’s methane emissions from animal agriculture.

Compared to plant-based alternatives, dairy requires around ten times as much land, and between two and twenty times as much freshwater. Recently, dairy farms in the US have also been hit by bird flu, with several confirmed cases of transmission from cows to humans.