Poland’s OSM Rawicz dairy cooperative, seeking a way to use acid whey, has partnered with the cosmetics industry — and its chairman says the cooperation can be far more profitable than standard dairy production, Portal Spożywczy reports.

Turning waste into a product

The partnership with the company Symbiosis grew out of a search for a partner able and willing to turn whey waste into a useful product, says OSM Rawicz chairman Jacek Myślecki. 

«Knowing that acid whey has very good ingredients and cosmetic properties, I looked for a solution in this segment», he says. 

«So far four cosmetics have been created — a lotion, a gel, a balm and a serum. The cooperation is very promising and full of development potential.» 

He calls it a circular-economy (CE) solution unique on at least a European scale, working across two industries at once: using up the aggressive acid-whey waste in dairy and minimising the use of natural water resources in cosmetics, since the products are based on water recovered from whey. Notably, OSM Rawicz received no EU or national funding for the project.

Above-average profitability for dairy

Profitability from the cooperation could be significantly higher than from standard dairy production, Myślecki argues, as cosmetics generally carry higher margins than dairy. 

«There is also no problem specific to a cooperative — in dairy we cannot cut costs where they are highest, namely buying milk, because we buy it from our owners», he says. 

«With cosmetics, every value created from something that was previously waste is greater still, because we do not incur, for example, the cost of disposing of acid whey.»

The global crisis hits small local cooperatives too

Summing up the first half of the year, Myślecki described intense work on changes driven by the crisis, alongside rising wages and energy, fuel and packaging costs. 

«Despite falling revenues and margins, we had to find a way to stay profitable», he says. 

«We preferred to lose volume rather than produce and sell at the edge of cost.» 

He says the cooperative felt the effects of oversupply on the domestic market, driven partly by imports from outside the EU and the closure of the Chinese market — redirecting some previously exported goods to the home market, imports priced below Polish production costs, butter-price anomalies, and price-cutting to offload goods before expiry.

Source: Portal Spożywczy