Whey Production Up

 What’s the big deal with whey? The answer is protein and it’s a valuable by-product of cheese manufacturing. OK! I’m no genius. But we already knew that. Truth is the only thing I ever knew about whey was from the Little Miss Muffett sat on a tuffett eating her curds and whey. Well I found out about it. Whey is a by-product of cheese making. It ‘s formed when the curds separate from the milk or cream. After the cheese curds are formed, the remaining liquid is called whey. This liquid is watery and thin. The important thing to be noted here is that whey is chock full of protein.

Now I find out with worldwide demand for whey products increasing for everything from breads to soups to energy bars, a Whey Processing Workshop is being hosted Feb. 3 in Twin Falls by University of Idaho Extension, School of Food Science and TechHelp. University of Idaho Extension Educator Jeff Kronenberg explains: “It’s a workshop, not a conference in that it’s more of an educational program targeted at the people who operate these factories that are making the whey, production personnel and quality personnel that are actually running the equipment and making the product.”

In a state that has so much dairy production and with dairies hurting like they are, this may be an important new revenue stream.