New consumers, new demands, a whole new era for cottage cheese. Are you ready?
Today’s cottage cheese boom has created new opportunities, but also new challenges. In this article, we explore how dairies and cottage cheese producers can update their thinking and modernise their processing to meet the demands of a new era1.
Lisa Stanger still remembers looking in her grandparent’s refrigerator as a child. “There was always cottage cheese,” she recalls. “They’d eat it plain or maybe add fruit. And my grandmother would have it in her holiday gelatine recipes. My parents seldom bought cottage cheese, but the older generation always had it.”
But times change – and so do the trends. Younger generations may still find cottage cheese at grandma’s house, but they are just as likely to buy it themselves, inspired by the food and wellness influencers they see on social media. The uses for cottage cheese, and the target consumer, are more diverse than ever before.
Yet, even as the market for cottage cheese has evolved so rapidly, many producers are still relying on the same production methods they have used since Lisa’s grandmother was the typical consumer. Are traditional technologies sufficient for meeting the challenges of a new era? Or will new solutions be needed to support future growth?
The market today
Lisa, who works at Tetra Pak as a Processing Account Manager for cottage cheese, has spent months meeting with producers across North America. She has spoken with them about current process conditions and future business needs, as well as the production challenges they face. These conversations have underscored that some cottage cheese producers can be unfamiliar with how technology and process steps have evolved in the last 30-40 years and, in particular, the advantages that modern enclosed cottage cheese vats can offer over traditional open vats.
One of the major challenges that today’s producers face is the need for more capacity. After decades of steady, but flat cottage cheese sales, the 2020s brought a sharp uptick in demand, along with discerning consumers looking for new types of products. This has put new pressure on existing cottage cheese producers to increase throughput and yield.
“In some markets, we’re seeing big sales increases in cottage cheese products up from just a year ago,” Lisa explains. “Consumers are looking for products that provide a real punch of protein in a small serving. Since cottage cheese can carry up to 25 grams of protein per serving, there is a very positive outlook for its consumption as health and wellness trends continue.”
The challenge of manual labour
Today, many producers are still employing traditional methods for making cottage cheese, with the entire process – filling, setting, cutting, cooking, draining, rinsing and blending the dressing – all taking place in the same open vat. This time-consuming process limits the producer’s ability to start another vat and, as a result, increase capacity.
In some cases, producers use downstream equipment for handling certain process steps, such as washing, draining and blending, outside the vat. These methods can also support the ability to start another vat sooner and thereby increase production.
“Open cheese vats are very labour intensive,” Lisa explains. “Even if the cut along the length of the vat is automated, the crosscutting is still performed manually. In addition to taking time, this crosscut must be precise. The manual process can lead to over- or undercutting, which, in turn, can result in inconsistent curd size and more cheese fines, and thus, product loss.”
Cleaning is another consideration. Besides needing to physically remove cutting wire frames and stirrers, workers need to clean the entire vats by hand. This adds to the amount of required manual labour, reducing the efficiency of the cleaning process and creating workplace safety concerns.
A hygienic environment
Another challenge with open vats is that they can be more susceptible to potential contamination. As Lisa explains, bacteriophage can be a problem for some plants to manage.
“Phage can attack the cultures that produce coagulation, prolonging the time it takes for the curd to set,” she says. “If this happens, process times can be much longer. It’s even possible that the vat will never set completely, leading to a producer losing a whole vat of product. Many producers make great efforts to keep phage in control, but when this happens, it can really affect their production schedule.”
Of course, a clean environment and proper vat cleaning is important not just for phage control, but also for general food safety and for supporting shelf-life needs. Lisa notes that for these reasons, use of an enclosed cottage cheese vat can help producers by ensuring a higher level of production hygiene. An enclosed system minimises contamination from both airborne sources and human contact, while also providing optimal cleanability with fully automated cleaning-in-place (CIP).
Consistency and repeatability
The advantages of switching from older, open vats are not just limited to hygiene improvements. An enclosed design also opens the door to modern automation and digitalisation solutions, which can make production more efficient and, above all, more consistent.
“With enclosed vats, we have a fully automated process,” Lisa says. “We designed our system to not only offer a hygienic, temperature-controlled environment, but also to ensure the product would be consistent and repeatable every time. By automating the system, we provide precise cutting, gentle stirring and gentle handling with every batch. A repeatable process throughout the whole system keeps the curd uniform and intact, creating a premium cottage cheese product. This is essential for meeting today’s consumer demand.”
Doing more with less
In other words, removing manual steps creates a more consistent product that consumers love and – because of capacity increases – more of it. As Lisa explains, a fully automated cheese vat can solve operational challenges for producers as well. Automation and digitalisation help reduce operator demand, which may be beneficial for dairies struggling to fill positions with a qualified workforce.
“As we noted, open vats require operators to manually perform both crosscutting and cleaning tasks,” she says. “Today’s technology takes these physical aspects out of the whole process. It’s significant. If you have a plant with four or five open vats, you will need multiple operators. With our automated system, you need just one operator who can support the entire process.”
The right technology for tomorrow’s challenges
“Taken together, we can see that there are several variables to improving production in cottage cheese,” Lisa concludes. “There are a lot of factors for producers to consider, and many of these are related to the need to shorten processing times. Adding automation into the mix, for example, not only supports increased capacity, but also improves efficiency and enhances the consistency and repeatability of the final product.”
Many of these variables, as Lisa has noted, are related to the continued use of traditional processing methods with open cheese vats. In her experience, it can therefore be valuable for producers to see just how far technology and production methods have come.
Key to this is understanding the benefits of fully automated, enclosed cheese vats. By improving capacity and product quality, while reducing operator demand, enclosed cheese vats can give producers a good return on investment by helping to boost profitability. They therefore offer a smart solution for meeting both the challenges of today – and the evolving consumer trends still to come.
Ready to make the switch?
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1 Unless otherwise noted, all information in this article is based on a lengthy 2025 interview with Lisa Stanger, a Tetra Pak Processing Account Manager who has worked closely with dairy customers throughout North America. To learn more about the information featured here, please feel free to contact us.