Moving along in the shadow of its TikTok-famous cousin cottage cheese is quark; a high-protein dairy product that had its moment in 2014-2015 and that doesn’t seem to have gone out of favour since – at least not if you ask the Swedes. In fact, it appears that the quark boom that Sweden saw in the mid-2010s is now happening again, with many manufacturers struggling to keep up with a demand that has “skyrocketed” over the past year.
Quark is a type of fresh cheese made by souring and straining milk, creating a high-protein product whose texture is best described as being somewhere between soft cheese and yoghurt. Protein content tends to be in the range of 10-15 grams per 100 grams.
According to Arla Sweden, demand for quark has grown by about 20-30% every year for the past six years, with a particular surge in 2024. This has led the dairy giant to re-prioritise its production to make room for more quark production.
Lactalis-owned Skånemejerier has also been taken aback by the surge in demand and invested SEK 70m+ (€6m+) in quark production. Their Lindahls brand, which offers an impressive 28 varieties of quark in Swedish retail, is now in some stores sold in plain white tubs without any of the usual colours and graphics, as a short supply of packaging material prevents Lindahls from keeping up with demand.
A feature in SVT Nyheter, Sweden’s national public broadcaster’s news platform, shows footage of empty quark shelves in an ICA supermarket.
An overall increasing demand for dairy protein, along with the fitness trend that's still going strong, are reported as the main reasons behind the surge. In fact, Arla reports seeing a 10% increase in demand for dairy protein overall during the first six months of 2024. Meanwhile, a survey by Skånemejerier showed that demand seems to come primarily from men aged 18-29, who are a major target market for protein products.
Dairy protein has been the biggest beneficiary of the protein trend that has shaped our industry for more than a decade. It has a natural health halo, and dairy businesses have excelled at improving consumers’ understanding of that health halo. This has also helped it resist the anti-dairy trend, and as long as manufacturers continue to excel in communicating dairy’s many benefits to consumers, dairy protein won’t be going anywhere any time soon.
To learn more about the latest trends in animal protein and beyond, download 10 Key Trends in Food, Nutrition and Health 2025: https://www.new-nutrition.com/keytrend?id=344
