No whey: Small businesses grapple with global whey protein shortage

When David Baillargeon placed an order for a batch of whey protein for his business last fall, his supplier turned it down.

“He’s like, ‘Bro, I told you. There’s nothing left,'” Baillargeon said, founder of Canadian Premier Supplements, a small-scale contract manufacturer for protein supplements, which helps the likes of influencers and gym owners launch their own products.

Consumer appetites for protein have spiked in recent years, partly fuelled by social media trends promoting high-protein diets and the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs that have users eating more nutrient-dense, high-protein foods. Businesses have taken notice. Store shelves are now packed with everything from protein-heavy nachos to pasta and breakfast cereal, while protein-laden coffee drinks are popping up on Starbucks and Tim Hortons menus. 

But for manufacturers of whey protein — a low-calorie, easily digestible supplement — ramping up production is not quick and simple. That’s left many struggling to keep up with the surge in demand.

Baillargeon said he couldn’t guarantee whey products to his clients for three months this past winter. Meanwhile, prices had jumped significantly.

For a contract manufacturer like him, higher prices meant fewer client orders as he passed the costs on to them. Baillargeon said whey protein orders have dropped about 35 per cent after prices started going up.

Whey protein concentrate, the type often used by food makers and supplement companies, was trading on the dairy commodities market at more than US$13 per pound in the U.S. as of mid-June, up 250 per cent from a year ago, according to U.S.-based AgTech company, Ever.Ag.

Whey protein isolate, a more refined version with a higher protein content, costs 150 per cent more than it did last year, the data shows.

The trend is also seen in Europe, where prices for some whey protein concentrates more than doubled in May from the year before, according to DCA Market Intelligence, a Netherlands-based commodity pricing firm.

But the dairy industry isn’t able to keep up with the demand, said Graeme Crosbie, senior economist at Farm Credit Canada. 

Because whey is a byproduct of the cheesemaking process, making more isn’t as easy as cranking up production, he said.

“These (facilities) that produce cheese, they’re capital-intensive, they require a lot of time, money to bring into production,” he said. “It’s not something in the short term that can be adjusted quickly to meet that additional demand.” 

Beyond manufacturing, milk supply at the farm level also remains finite, Crosbie said. 

In April, dairy co-operative Agropur announced a billion-dollar investment to increase its production capacity for more proteins to meet growing demand.

Meanwhile, Montreal-based Saputo Inc. invested heavily to ramp up whey production a couple of years ago, which has worked in its favour, chief executive Carl Colizza told analysts on a fourth-quarter earnings call earlier this month.

But it will be a while before supply pressures ease, Crosbie said.

“It’s a long process to not only have the capital to make these plant investments but also to get them into production,” he said.

For businesses that use whey as an ingredient, this means adjusting to rising costs in the meantime.

At Vaughan, Ont.-based Flourish Pancakes, whey protein remains central to most of its pancake and muffin mixes. So far, its supply hasn’t been disrupted, but that comes at a steep price. 

“It’s a take what you can get or what you’re offered kind of market,” said Andrew Andriano, founder of Flourish. “It’s definitely hurt our margins more than our supply chain.” 

As the company takes a 10 to 20 per cent hit on margins, Andriano said he hasn’t passed on all those costs to consumers. Instead, the company is finding savings elsewhere and buying more whey than needed to get ahead of possible future price increases.

But Andriano said consumers would soon start voting with their dollar and switch to more affordable protein alternatives if prices continue to climb. Some of those options include pea, soy, hemp, brown rice and other plant- or dairy-based proteins. 

The breakfast company has already started thinking about a blend of plant- and whey-based protein as an affordable alternative, he said. But that’s not going to affect the current product line and pancake mix options.  

However, not all small-scale manufacturers are able to keep their formulations intact.

After her whey isolate supplier backed out last month, Aelie Swift had to find a new provider for her high-protein baking mixes for pancakes and waffles. But soon, the owner of Calgary-based HelloAmino realized that not all whey is equal.

Since then, Swift has been reformulating 12 out of roughly 30 products to “find a new way — no pun intended — of creating these recipes using a combination of different proteins because the whey isolate that we have is not workable.”

Swift said she has also been experimenting with other nutrients, such as collagen and fibre.

“We’ve built our brand on using this high-quality protein,” she said. “I don’t want to move away from it completely. So we’re trying to find the best balance.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 19, 2026.

— With files from The Associated Press