Yes, whey can

Newest hard seltzer innovation from Cornell professor uses yogurt waste

Sam Alcaine doesn’t look at the world like most people. Alcaine, an assistant professor of food science at Cornell University in Ithaca, focuses on sustainability. But he’s attacking a problem most don’t know exists.

New York, he said, is the largest producer of yogurt in the country, particularly Greek yogurt. That means the state also is left with the most yogurt waste after the product is finished. So after being approached by state officials, Alcaine started considering ways he could re-use whey, the pesky, unwanted yogurt byproduct.

With a background in brewing and product development, Alcaine thought about what might happen if he were to ferment the whey. He was inspired by the Nordic tradition of fermenting whey from skyr, an Icelandic cultured dairy product.

The end result is Norwhey, a nutrient-laden hard seltzer, which is now available in Wegmans and other beer retailers. And unlike other hard seltzers, Norwhey is loaded with vitamins and electrolytes.

“Being from the brewing world, I thought, ‘What does it have?” Alcaine said. “It’s lactose, and I can convert that into ethanol. It’s got all these minerals. It’s really rich in calcium, magnesium, potassium, and they’re just throwing it away. Being in the product development world, the idea of a ‘better-for-you’ beer has largely escaped the category. You have Michelob Ultra playing there. You have the hard seltzers playing there. But they’re really just playing on the calorie basis.

“So if we can ferment this and actually make it taste good, we might have a very novel product. So the question was, how do we do that?”

A challenge from the state

Alcaine came up with the initial idea for the whey-based seltzers shortly after returning to Cornell in 2016.

He completed his undergraduate work at the University of Maryland, then followed with a master’s degree from Cornell. He spent a few years working in process and product development at brewing giant MillerCoors (now Molson Coors) and then in food safety at Unilever. Alcaine earned his doctorate at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and then returned to Cornell in 2016.

The state Department of Environmental Conversation approached Cornell scientists with a uniquely New York problem. As the top yogurt-producing state in the country, especially a lot of Greek yogurt, New York also has a lot of yogurt whey, a byproduct that “nobody knows what to do with,” Alcaine said.

An unexpected partnership

Alcaine teaches dairy extension courses, some focusing on yogurt production and food safety. Sandvoss founded First Light Farm and Creamery, which specializes in goat cheese at its facility in East Bethany, Genesee County. They first crossed paths in a food safety course Alcaine taught. With his research and development background, Alcaine wanted to partner with someone with experience in marketing and sales. Sandvoss was the perfect teammate, Alcaine said.

“I wanted to double check and make sure I wasn’t crazy,” Alcaine joked. “I had done some fermentations, tasted some things, and thought, ‘I think there is something here.’ Trystan is a young guy, he’s come through my program, let me give him a call. He tried them and said, ‘These are great. What do I have to do to be part of this?’”

(Aside: Alcaine isn’t crazy, not even close. Instead, he has an alcoholic beverage that is really unlike any other on the market. He even got confirmation that he wasn’t crazy from Brooklyn Brewery co-founder Steve Hindy, a Cornell graduate. I thought the Norwhey seltzers drank more like kettle sours than seltzers, because they have a natural salinity that makes them super refreshing. Unless you knew it was a dairy product, you’d be hard pressed to determine that. And because the lactose is completely fermented out, the beverage is safe for those who are lactose intolerant.)

From there, the duo entered various business plan competitions, including Grow NY, where it was able to drum up some interest and gain some valuable buzz. That propelled Norwhey to where it stands now, launching in Wegmans stores statewide through its contract brewing agreement with Meier’s Creek Brewing in Cazenovia, Madison County. Consumers will be able to grab four packs of one of Norwhey’s core flavors – Glacial Ginger, Mountain Berry, and Solar Citrus.

Humble beginnings

Alcaine first crafted some test batches in partnership with Bandwagon Brewery in Interlaken, Seneca County. He convinced the brewery to let him brew up some small batches there, experimented with some flavor combinations, and then put them on draft at the brewery’s taproom. The product was met with enthusiasm and when Alcaine saw people ordering a second or third pour of the seltzers, he knew he had a winner.

Initially, Alcaine thought the seltzer would work best as a radler, a 50-50 blend of a sessionable beer and seltzer. But people enjoyed the seltzer on its own, he found.

Norwhey now leases the former Bandwagon space and could potentially open a tasting room there in the future if demand is strong. Retail is the initial focus.

“There’s so much whey that if we’re going to dent in it, it has to be through retail,” Alcaine said. “No one is going to drink enough of it at a taproom to move the needle.”

And from his position as a Cornell professor, Alcaine said he helps a lot of companies and farms with troubleshooting. He has those connections, so Norwhey is able to approach the big yogurt manufacturers and pick up excess whey.

What is old is new again

Innovative processes often have roots in the past, Alcaine said. “What you end up finding is that what is new is actually old,” Alcaine said. “Strained yogurt has a long history in main cultures around the world.”

As he was researching lactose fermentations and what had been done with whey, he encountered literature about what had been done for hundreds of years in Iceland with byproduct from skyr, which is more concentrated than Greek yogurt.

“They would put it in these barrels and age it and somehow it would become alcoholic,” Alcaine said. “It wasn’t clear if they added alcohol or it became alcohol, because no one fermented it any longer, so we don’t know the microbes responsible for that transformation. But there was this story.”

Drinking whey might not appeal to most, but framing it in this Nordic tradition, with a history of using everything you had. So the Norwhey name just made sense.

“This whole process is about showing the industry there is a way here,” Alcaine said. “We can use whey in consumer goods. Obviously, I want Norwhey to be the biggest thing in the world. But if other people jump into the space, it’s the validation that there was a path here. And I as a researcher, as a professor, drove the industry to do new things. Just getting on the shelf for me is a huge step in that journey.”