Tomorrow Farms wants to address some of the food system’s ‘biggest problems’ starting, it said, with the dairy category. “Tomorrow Farms is a company that aims to reinvent your favorite foods in ways that are better for people, kinder to animals and easier on the planet,” CEO and Co-Founder Ben Berman explained.
Following its successful fundraise earlier this month - when it secured backing from venture capital firms including Lowercarbon Capital, Maveron and Valor Siren Ventures – the group is now preparing to launch its first products.
Bored Cow flavoured milks will be available in the US next month. The brand will initially offer three varieties – chocolate, vanilla and strawberry – with a fourth flavour, original, due for release later this summer. “One of the reasons we are so excited about launching Bored Cow as our first brand is the chance to reinvent dairy,” Berman told DairyReporter.
Launching first in direct-to-consumer, the products will be available for home delivery. Berman believes this is a great channel for the challenger brand to form a direct relationship with consumers looking for something new. “We thought about how fun it would be to bring back traditional milk delivery people. Launching as a DTC company allows us to bring back some of the fun of receiving your milk in your home, where customers are more and more comfortable purchasing their groceries as we reinvent this refrigerator staple for the future.”
That said, he continued, Tomorrow Farms is ‘excited about bringing Bored Cow to all of your favorite stores in the near future’.
Partnering with Perfect Day
Bored Cow contains animal-free dairy proteins produced by Perfect Day’s precision fermentation technology, which enables the programming of micro-organisms to produce complex organic molecules, such as protein. According to the company, this is nutritionally ‘identical’ to conventional whey protein but with 97% fewer carbon emissions.
Tomorrow Farms has taken this ingredient as a base for its liquid milk innovations. “Perfect Day animal free whey protein is truly bio identical to the dairy protein found in conventional milk… We're so proud to announce Perfect Day as one of the first partners for Tomorrow Farms. Bored Cow milk is built around Perfect Day’s incredible animal-free whey protein. The rest of our formula – the additional nutrients, the taste, the texture, and all the other amazing value propositions of this product including zero grams of sugar in our flavored milk – are created by the Tomorrow Farms team,” Berman said.
Tomorrow Farms suggests Bored Cow contains all the ‘creaminess and goodness’ of traditional dairy, with 8 grams of complete protein per cup, 0 grams of total sugars per cup, as well as calcium, potassium, vitamin D, and vitamin B12 consumers expect and love from traditional dairy milk. It is also free from lactose, gluten, nuts, hormones, and antibiotics.
The brand boasts other advantages over traditional dairy products, the CEO and food tech innovator told this publication. “Bored Cow is a shelf stable product, because there are no hormones or antibiotics. Because of the way we treat the milk, there is a year of shelf life with Bored Cow, and it doesn’t need to be refrigerated until you’re ready to enjoy it.”
Cost parity and consumer appeal
Commenting on the launch, Perfect Day Co-Founder and CEO Ryan Pandya said the innovation would help expand the impact of its ‘kinder, greener’ dairy-identical proteins. “These new flavored milks from the visionary team at Tomorrow Farms extend our impact to consumers looking for a fun, planet positive, and nutritious choice for their families. This engaging brand makes the kinder, greener option exciting for the generations who are growing up into the future we are creating.”
Significantly, Berman told this publication that the flavoured milks will hit the market at close to cost parity with conventional and plant-based alternatives. “We're launching at pretty close to price competitive with flavored milk products on the market right out of the gate, as well as some of the plant based milks that consumers have come to know and enjoy over the past five to ten years. Longer term, we absolutely believe that we will be able to compete on price with more traditional gallons of dairy milk in the supermarket. We believe that consumers deserve better. They deserve dairy with no hormones or antibiotics, options with no animal that doesn't compromise on taste, texture and nutrition. We're proud that Bored Cow is the first to be able to offer all of those things. We think that there's a large group of consumers ready for this product today, and we're ready to surprise any other consumer with the taste, quality, texture and nutrients of Bored Cow to make this switch as easy as possible.
“We believe that the way that our food systems have evolved to feed a growing planet has had devastating effects for our animals and our land. The goal is to disrupt large scale factory farming and create a product that is not only better for us, but better for the planet and better for our animals. We don't think that that's a niche, we think that that's just the future.”
