Beloit, WI—There is great market potential in the plant-based dairy alternative category, with innovation in beverages, frozen desserts, and vegan slices, and more. To help companies and startups stand apart from the crowd, Kerry has released a Plant-based Dairy Alternative Toolkit. This virtual toolkit is designed to give innovators in the U.S. simple, scalable, and sustainable solutions to help with plant-based food and beverage product development and growth prospects.

“Emerging and innovative plant-based brands and products need straightforward expert assistance, a road map to scalability, and a focus on sustainability—which Kerry’s 2021 proprietary research says is important to 75% of consumers in this category," said Elizabeth Horvath, Vice President of Marketing at Kerry North America, in a press release. "Kerry’s new Plant-based Dairy Alternative Toolkit provides an excellent jumpstart on that road to success. You own the brand identity, and Kerry is here to help in building the product’s market appeal through simple solutions and expert suggestions that are easy to implement, scalable and sustainable.”

The toolkit offers:
  • a research-based “building your brand” checklist designed to help developers ask questions that can speed up a product’s innovation journey.
  • information on the top five development considerations.
  • guides to help product developers create consumer-preferred taste experiences.
  • tips on formulating with exciting flavors that will build consumer loyalty and foster repeat purchasing.
“With Kerry’s deep roster of highly experienced flavorists and product application experts and extensive ingredient portfolio, we can provide a wide range of taste solutions that can improve creaminess and mouthfeel, neutralize off-notes, and balance sweetness to achieve an optimized flavor profile," Horvath added. "Controlling undesired off-notes—from sweeteners, caffeine, bitterness and plant proteins, for instance—is an essential challenge to developing satisfying tastes in alternative dairy, and our experts can help in that process."

The toolkit also offers information on adding science-backed digestive and immune health-supporting ingredients. Kerry noted in the release that its liquid BC30 can help drive product innovation and differentiation.

Benjamin George, Research Scientist, elaborated on the liquid-based ingredient: “The unique liquid version of our well-known, science-backed BC30 overcomes the challenges of adding digestive and immune health support into plant-based dairy-alternative or dairy products. There is value in doing this, as research has shown that American plant-based consumers are three times more likely to purchase products that contain ingredients like Kerry’s BC30. An additional benefit is that peer-reviewed, published research shows that the inclusion of BC30 supports protein absorption, and this is highly important to consumers seeking an extra nutritional bonus beyond the digestive benefits they have come to expect from many digestive and immune health ingredients.”

The ioolkit can be downloadedhere (Note: the toolkit is intended for download only in the U.S.)