Whey Protein, volatility and Corporate America

By now you have probably seen the price of whey going up at a rapid rate. The last couple years have been challenging for people in the whey protein business and especially the dairy business. Dairy farmers here in the USA have just had a very tough time during the recession and as a result have decreased the size of their farms to stay in business and many dairy farmers have gone completely out of business.

Dairy (milk, cheese, whey etc) is such a huge component of the American diet that losing dairy farms has a major impact at the supermarket in the form of higher prices. In our industry the same holds true... as we have less and less raw product (from cheese production) do to the reduction in dairy farms and milk output, our whey protein costs will rise. Simple economics... less supply, high demand equals higher prices. In the last few months we have seen whey protein cost rise close to 50%. This is a staggering jump and reminds me of the year 2007 when we watched barrels of oil sky rocket to $150 per barrel. These unexpected jumps in commodities prices never come at the right time and seem to do more damage to an already fragile industry. Of course as with all commodities I wonder how much of the new inflated price is really warranted versus how much of the new inflated price is a result of speculators and corporate greed.

Now there has been a new factor emerge in the whey protein industry. We were already at a point of under supply and over demand and then stepped in the super mega corporation PEPSICO AKA Pepsi Cola. Pepsi has purchased 500 million pounds of whey protein concentrate from dozens of sources the U.S. and about 17 million pounds of whey protein isolate. Pepsi actually couldn't get enough whey protein so now they are buying whey protein from China. They are using the whey protein in their new "G" protein drink.

This is horrible for the whey market one due to the lack of whey (as they have sucked up all available whey for this year 2010) and secondly they aren't even putting out as quality product. Just think.... if you buy this new Gatorade drink... half the protein came from China. I am not going to even comment about eating protein from China.

We pride ourselves on great customer service and offering a high quality, USA made product at a great price. Now The Greed Corp, has turned the whey industry upside down. There will not be any whey for another 10 months, as the cheese factories aren't going to just speed up the process for "bodybuilders and athletes" We are going to try our best to hold the line but what we are being told is whey protein could very well go to 2 - 3 times the price per pound of what it currently is. And I mean this across the board from every single protein powder company out there.....and in any and every area of whey protein being sold out there.

This "Alligatorade" drink company acquisition is going to drive whey protein prices skyrocketing northward. The problem is whey is a byproduct of cheese/dairy and the dairies aren't going to start manufacturing more cheese to get more byproduct=whey protein (and throw away the cheese). Even if the cheese companies wanted to produce more cheese, there just isn't enough milk or product demand in the mass market.

I thank you all for supporting the BBW brand and we are going to continue to offer great quality products to you! We are in the process of engineering a milk protein concentrate/isolate 85. It will be a high quality product with the same amount of protein (or slightly more) and without all the fillers and additives, of course made in the U.S.A. We have a great following and will not back down from this....THE BUYBULKWHEY ARMY WILL CONTINUE!!!! volatility

In addition to temporally using a MPC 85 (Milk Protein Isolate 85%) we are currently securing the means of whey protein production. Once we have control the means of production we will no longer have to worry about how corporate America tainting our market. Thanks again for all your support... hang strong and I think you will see BuyBulkWhey.com not only rise to the occasion, but we may take this opportunity to become one the the leaders in the whey industry.

Whey-Volution - Protein for the people!!