Fermented egg white protein: summary
- Whey protein concentrate has jumped from $1.52 to over $2 a pound in 2026, and that price spike – not egg prices – is the main driver of demand for this ingredient
- ADM’s Clinton, Iowa plant gives the ingredient its first true commercial-scale US manufacturing, while Rich Products has separately committed to a finished product built around it
- The Every Company pitches the protein as a hedge against supply shocks in either market – a second source manufacturers can lean on when eggs or whey hit one of their periodic crises
US retail egg prices peaked at $6.23 a dozen in March 2025, fell to $2.19 by May 2026, and have been climbing again since bird flu resurfaced in a dozen states this summer, with more than 12 million laying hens culled since the spring.
That volatility is the reason a fermented egg white protein makes news at all – but it isn’t really what’s driving demand for this particular ingredient.
The bigger rival, by Every’s own account, is whey.
USDA figures put whey protein concentrate at $1.52 a pound in January 2026, climbing to $1.74 by May and as high as $2.18 by July as some producers cut output altogether, and it’s that price curve, plus whey’s tendency to leave baked goods dry and chalky at high inclusion rates, that’s pushing formulators to look for a different route to protein fortification altogether.
One of those alternatives just took two significant steps toward mainstream supply in the space of a few weeks.
ADM and The Every Company have announced a partnership to bring commercial-scale production of Every’s precision-fermented egg white protein to ADM’s facility in Clinton, Iowa, marking what the companies describe as the first site of its kind in the US to host precision fermentation capacity at this scale.
In a separate commercial agreement, Every has also partnered with Rich Products Corporation – one of the world’s largest privately held food companies – to develop and launch OvoPro-based products across Rich’s bakery, snack and foodservice lines in the US.
While Every’s precision-fermented protein has existed for a few years already, what it’s lacked is a processor with the tank capacity and logistics network to supply it at the volumes multinational manufacturers actually need, and a brand-name manufacturer willing to put it into products at scale.
What is precision fermentation?
Precision fermentation uses microorganisms – typically yeast or fungi – that have been programmed to produce a specific target molecule, such as a protein, rather than the alcohol or lactic acid that traditional fermentation yields. The microorganism is grown in a bioreactor, fed a sugar source, and the protein it produces is then harvested and purified. It’s the same broad technique already used to make rennet for cheesemaking and insulin for diabetics – the difference here is the target molecule and the scale manufacturers are now trying to reach with it.
Precision fermentation has spent years living somewhere between promise and proof – plenty of interesting ingredients but not always the manufacturing muscle or commercial buy-in behind them. Two tie-ups of this size, arriving weeks apart, change that equation, at least for this particular protein, and it’s worth asking what it actually means for the people formulating the products on your shelf, rather than just for the companies signing the deals.
Why protein fortification, not egg replacement, is driving demand
I asked Arturo Elizondo, Every’s founder and chief executive, where precision-fermented egg protein actually fits into a manufacturer’s sourcing strategy: as a straight replacement, a complementary ingredient, or mainly a hedge against supply risk. He contended it’s not a choice but “all three, depending on the manufacturer. However, there is a fourth pillar that is currently what’s driving a large portion of our demand: protein fortification.”
That’s the part that should catch any product developer’s attention, whatever category they work in. “Whey protein prices are through the roof,” Elizondo said, “and other proteins have strong off-notes and can end up drying up the product and making it chalky.”
He describes the protein as a “one-two punch” – boosting protein content while also providing the structure and lift that keep baked goods from turning dense once you’ve loaded them with protein. “That’s the secret sauce,” he added.
According to Elizondo, it performs best “in applications where you need structure, binding, and protein simultaneously” – cakes, cookies, performance bakery products, protein snacks and enriched doughs, with high-protein formats in the 10g to 20g-per-serving range and taste-and-texture-critical baked goods singled out as the sweet spot.
That’s a reasonably candid admission that this isn’t a universal drop-in yet: categories such as pasta, confectionery, sports nutrition and pet nutrition are described as still being optimised, which is a useful signal for anyone weighing where to trial it first versus where to wait.
In announcing its deal with Every, however, Rich’s has positioned the protein as a dual-function ingredient – a structural binder and a protein booster in one addition – that lets its formulators lift protein content without the usual trade-offs in texture.
MD Dinsh Guzdar said consumers now expect protein in product categories that haven’t traditionally offered it, so the company is targeting areas where hitting those expectations has historically forced formulators into compromises on taste or texture.
A genuine commercial tipping point or still early days?
That’s a question I put to Every’s chief revenue officer Mario Patiño, and he didn’t hedge. “This is a genuine tipping point. When ADM invests manufacturing capacity at a major facility specifically for fermentation-derived protein, that signals supply confidence.
“The barriers now are operational, not technical,” he continued. “Manufacturers need reliable supply assurance, confidence in process integration, and understanding of total cost-in-use advantages.”
I asked what will ultimately decide whether precision-fermented proteins become a mainstream fixture rather than a niche ingredient for a handful of premium brands. “Economics will do the most work,” Elizondo argued – not the per-kilo cost of the ingredient itself, but total cost-in-use over the product lifecycle.
Precision fermentation already underpins a large share of everyday food manufacturing in ways most consumers never think about: fermentation-based rennet is used in over 90% of US cheese production and fermentation-derived enzymes already show up widely in baked goods as preservatives and texture enhancers.
“Functionality is proven,” he said. It’s the source of this particular protein, rather than its function, that’s still unfamiliar to most manufacturers.
“Consumer acceptance matters less for B2B adoption [than people might assume],” Patiño added. This is a decision driven by economics rather than optics: what actually moves a manufacturer to switch, he contended, is inventory costs dropping, shelf life extending, waste reducing and supply becoming predictable – the unglamorous mechanics of running a production line, rather than a shopper reading an ingredients panel.
Why can’t the dairy industry keep up with whey demand?
Demand for whey has surged as high-protein eating has gone mainstream, and the rise of GLP-1 weight-loss medications – which can reduce muscle mass alongside fat – has pushed even more consumers to chase extra protein to compensate.
That demand is running headlong into a supply side that isn’t actually short of milk: global dairy production has stayed broadly stable, and cheese output, whey’s original source as a by-product of cheesemaking, hasn’t slowed either.
The bottleneck sits further downstream, in turning liquid whey into food-grade concentrate or isolate, which needs specialised filtration and spray-drying capacity that most producers are already running flat out. Building new lines takes years and serious capital, so even the roughly $11bn in expansion the US dairy industry has announced won’t meaningfully ease supply until 2027 at the earliest.
With buyers competing hard for a fixed pool of processing capacity, some manufacturers have found it more viable to sell forward on contract or scale back than to compete for spot-market volume at these prices.
On paper, Every’s shelf-stability claims for OvoPro support that pitch: the company says the ingredient needs no cold-chain handling and stays stable for roughly a year and a half, alongside a top-tier amino acid digestibility score – the kind of line-item advantages that show up in a manufacturer’s cost model well before they show up in a shopper’s hands.
I also asked how precision-fermented proteins will coexist with conventional egg production over the next decade. “There will be coexistence, not replacement. Traditional eggs remain critical for global protein supply,” said Elizondo, noting that global egg consumption is around 1.3 trillion annually and keeps growing.
As such, Every positions its protein as something manufacturers can add alongside eggs – an ‘adder’ in his words – to improve structure and protein content without changing flavour, rather than something designed to displace them outright.
The more practical pitch is that manufacturers are “looking for redundancy and supply chain stability” given the natural volatility of the egg market – a second source they can lean on when the conventional egg market hits one of its periodic crises, easing pressure on that supply rather than competing with it head-on.
It’s a convenient argument for a company selling an alternative protein to make, and manufacturers will reasonably want to test those cost-in-use and functionality claims for themselves before betting a formulation on it.
The difference now is that two large, established companies – ADM and Rich’s – have put real resources behind that argument, which is likely to prompt closer scrutiny from formulators and competitors alike over the next few years.
