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UK cottage cheese sales boom as social media craze drives demand | Food

If you peered right into a UK fridge within the late 1970s, it’s greater than possible you’d have discovered a pot of cottage cheese tucked between the prawn cocktail and sherry trifle.

A well-liked “diet food” on the time, demand waned in subsequent many years as the high-protein, low-fat surprise meals fell out of style. But 50 years on from its heyday, cottage cheese is making a comeback within the UK, and has turn into an unlikely hit with health-conscious Gen Z.

Driven by a wave of social media influencers sharing ingenious recipes for the dairy product, which is comprised of milk curds, UK retailers are reporting important will increase in sales, whereas producers are struggling to maintain up with demand.

“It’s come from absolutely nowhere,” stated Robert Graham, managing director of Graham’s Family Dairy. “Since May of last year, when there was a TikTok craze that went on, cottage cheese sales for us are up 40%.”

The firm stated the expansion in manufacturing, the equal of an additional 2m kilograms a 12 months, means it’s taking a look at methods to extend output, together with an preliminary progress plan to take a position £5m to bolster its manufacturing services.

“We are considering new factories because cottage cheese production is almost full,” stated Graham, whose firm provides huge retailers such as Co-op, Morrisons and Aldi.

Dairy firm Arla can be benefiting from the cottage cheese rush, reporting a double-digit improve in sales within the final three months, whereas Marks & Spencer skilled a 30% improve in contrast with final 12 months, and Waitrose reported a 22% year-on-year rise.

Health-conscious meals influencers are driving take-up with eye-catching recipes, from cottage cheese ice-cream to frittatas.

The hottest invention although, needs to be cottage cheese cookie dough.

Posted in May 2023 by chef and bestselling creator Jake Cohen, the video of his concoction, which additionally included protein powder, went viral securing millions of views and spawning dozens of copycat recipes.

Nutrition coach and influencer Holistically Stevi’s TikTok recipe for cottage cheesecake has been watched 3.1m occasions. She makes use of a blender to blitz collectively the important thing ingredient with maple syrup and protein powder, earlier than including damaged biscuits to the highest.

The TikTok channel Foods We Love to Eat shared three ways to combine it with toast, together with cottage cheese bruschetta and cottage cheese and fig jam, notching up 2.3m views.

Due to its excessive protein content material, the dairy product was promoted by the US authorities as a direct alternative for meat through the first world battle.

US government-issued wartime academic poster encouraging Americans to eat extra cottage cheese, 1917. Photograph: Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images

Black and white posters produced to coach and inform the general public featured the declare that one pound of cottage cheese gave you extra protein than a pound of beef, lamb or rooster.

Nutrition professional Ursula Arens believes that in the present day’s revival might be as a result of rising variety of eating regimen plans that look to eradicate carbohydrates and enhance protein consumption.

She stated: “In the past few years, there’s been a sort of whispering campaign that the more protein you consume, the more bulked and muscly you’ll look.”

Jimmy Dickinson, proprietor of Longley Farm, which has seen a “steady increase” in cottage cheese sales of about 10% over the past couple of years, remembers the earlier boom.

Longley Farm turned one of many first corporations to start out producing cottage cheese within the UK within the 1970s. Dickinson’s father, Joseph, had the thought after seeing US servicemen chowing down their curds whereas he was serving within the Navy through the second world battle.

“We’ve ridden this very long rollercoaster,” stated Dickinson of the rise and fall in cottage cheese’s reputation.

He stated: “In the 1970s the sales were focused on slimmers trying to lose weight before their holiday to Spain, now the interest is very much, ‘I’ve just swum 50 lengths, and I’ll eat cottage cheese as my protein fix at the end of it.’”

For Marks & Spencer the cottage cheese craze has resulted in a double win. Not solely are sales up by 30% this 12 months, but it surely has additionally boosted its social media hits too.

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A latest video posted on its Instagram feed, in which influencer Em the Nutritionist shares her hot honey and cottage cheese toast recipe, has amassed 4m views.



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