Why Hybrid Dairy is Outperforming Plant-Based Formats in Taste Tests

Products that blend dairy with plant-based ingredients are preferred over 100% vegan formats in taste tests, but these ‘balanced proteins’ lag in purchase intention. Here’s how they can close the gap.

After a breakout year in 2025, hybrid dairy is now looking to break through.

As the plant-based category continues its struggle to keep consumers interested, and milk makes a comeback, products that combine the two can bring out the best of both.

These ‘balanced proteins’ can help lower the high emissions, water and land use associated with dairy, as well as the saturated fat and cholesterol content, while adding fibre to products and easing concerns about the lack of certain micronutrients in plant-based alternatives.

“Think milk, cheese, or cream products that blend traditional dairy with plant proteins such as soy, pea, fava bean, and oat,” says Caroline Cotto, director of Nectar, the sensory insights initiative of US non-profit Food System Innovations (FSI).

It recently conducted extensive taste tests with nearly 2,200 omnivores, evaluating their thoughts on over 100 products across nine categories. This included four balanced dairy products, which Nectar defines as having at least 30% plant-based, fermentation-derived, or cell-cultured ingredients.

Nectar’s Taste of the Industry report reveals that hybrid dairy innovations had an average overall liking of 4.8 on a seven-point scale, outperforming plant-based offerings (4.4) but still lagging behind 100% animal-derived products (5.7).

“So much of what consumers seek in dairy are those rich, creamy attributes that are naturally easier to replicate with traditional dairy mixed into a product,” says Cotto. “Those familiar flavours and textures improve the average taste scores.”

That said, non-dairy products have the advantage of market awareness and adoption on their side, and have learnt “marketing and education lessons that balanced dairy products could benefit from”.

For milk and mozzarella, blended options closer to dairy than plant-based

The research found that blended dairy products outperformed all non-dairy mozzarella and milk products. Three in five (61%) of taste-testers rated the leading hybrid milk as the same or better than 100% cow’s milk, compared to 58% who said the same for the top dairy-free milk.

Likewise, only 30% of consumers found vegan mozzarella to taste the same or better than its conventional counterpart, but this rose to 43% for the hybrid alternative.

“In our non-dairy study, we talked about mozzarella’s biggest challenges – texture and function: plant-based mozzarellas must melt, stretch, and brown, while also delivering a rich milky flavour,” says Cotto.

In an interview with Green Queen last month, she had explained that casein – the most abundant protein group in cow’s milk – is uniquely suited to these attributes, with many existing plant-based formulations relying on starches and non-dairy fats that “consistently fall short”.

“By including traditional dairy in balanced mozzarella products, you maintain that dairy casein, which is protein uniquely suited to bring that melt, stretch and other attributes consumers love about this cheese,” she says now.

“There are some companies, like Formo and New Culture, that are specifically working on how to create animal-free casein that I think will be game-changing for the industry.”

Balanced dairy category needs clear communication

Despite the dominance in taste testfs, balanced dairy products still have a lot of work to do to increase their appeal. Across most categories, more taste-testers said they would buy the plant-based version rather than the blended option.

The gap was largest between milk and creamers, where only a third (32%) of consumers showed interest in purchasing hybrid products, compared with 59% who said they’d buy non-dairy alternatives. This gap existed for ice cream, cream cheese, and butter as well.

The only products in which blended dairy carried greater conceptual appeal were sour cream and cheese, the latter illustrating the broader taste challenges of the dairy-free cheese category.

Tim Dale, category innovation director at FSI, feels the chasm in purchase intention stems from familiarity and ambiguity. “Unlike balanced meat, there’s less of an existing reference point for adding ingredients to dairy, especially milk,” he explains.

“Dairy-free presents a cleaner binary choice with a narrative and functional benefit that people understand. The more complicated a story, the more hesitation it introduces in consumers.

“Many people are also dairy-free because they are lactose-intolerant; Balanced Dairy doesn’t solve for this key purchase driver, so you have to find other purchase drivers consumers care about – like lower saturated fat in cheese, or lower cholesterol.”

This is why blended dairy needs more targeted marketing. “Balanced dairy products have every opportunity to capture a meaningful share of the nearly $1T global dairy market by matching or exceeding the performance of conventional dairy,” says Dale.

“But they can’t do it without clearly communicating and educating how these balanced products enhance the dairy staples consumers already know and trust.”

Why Europe is leading the hybrid dairy movement

Apart from marketing, doubling down on reserach and innovation to enhance the products themselves is just as important. “R&D teams should focus on increasing the richness of products, such as fattiness and butteriness,” says Cotto.

“Additionally, it’s key that they minimise off-notes such as chemical flavours and lingering aftertaste. These two pieces of feedback from taste testers were consistent with our findings of non-dairy products as well,” she notes.

“More importantly for this category, consumer insights and marketing teams have opportunities to anchor messaging in the familiarity of conventional dairy formats and develop sharper positioning that speaks to specific consumer needs and motivations. These will be critical to product adoption for balanced dairy makers.”

Though the participants were American, the balanced dairy products they tested were European, reflecting the momentum this category has accrued over the last year. Companies like PlanetDairy and Dutch supermarket Albert Heijn have led the way with hybrid milks, yoghurts and cheeses.

“Within Europe, adoption of balanced proteins varies by country. Markets like the Netherlands are leading, while others face a more gradual path. For the regions where the category is growing, grocers are at the centre – especially through their use of private labels,” outlines Dale.

“Many retailers have set ambitious sustainability targets focused on reducing animal protein, and they see balanced products as a practical way to deliver on those goals. Because they control placement, pricing, and in-store messaging, they are able to actively shape how the category is introduced and scaled,” he adds.

“For manufacturers looking to break through in retail, developing close partnerships with grocers is critical. From private label development to on-shelf promotion, grocers can normalise the category and make it accessible to everyday consumers.”

FSI teams up with Foodvalley to accelerate balanced protein innovation

The hybrid dairy insights were debuted at the Plant FWD conference in Amsterdam last week, as part of FSI’s new collaboration with the Wageningen-based non-profit Foodvalley (which recently found that balanced proteins are 4.4% cheaper than meat and dairy in the Netherlands).

The two organisations will work together to speed up learning across the European and US markets, including insights on ingredient formulation, manufacturing scale-up, consumer communication, and nutrition. “While balanced protein products have appeared in both markets for decades, success has been sporadic,” says Dale.

“With Foodvalley’s research and focus on the EU market, and FSI’s work in the US, we aim to share notes and find opportunities to better understand what is actually driving success for balanced proteins, whether that’s ingredient formulation, manufacturing scale-up, consumer communication, or nutrition.

“Between the two networks, there’s already a broad mix of stakeholders working in this space, from ingredient providers and manufacturers to researchers and NGOs. The goal is to make it easier to learn from each other and build on what’s working, rather than everyone figuring it out independently. 

“Ultimately, no single organisation is going to drive this category forward alone. We especially encourage other NGOs and ecosystem players who are working in this space to connect, share what they’re seeing, and explore ways to collaborate.”