Aspectos relativos à produção de soro de leite no Brasil, 2007-2016.

A co-product of cheese-manufacturing, whey protein is an important component in dairy processing. It has a multifarious range of applications, depending on the processors’ level of complexity. Often discarded or fed raw to livestock, whey protein can be processed into different food and nonproducts by the food, animal feed, health supplement, chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Because Brazil’s capacity for processing whey protein and its derivatives is insufficient to meet the market demand, imports are necessary. The country’s whey production is dispersed, making the collection logistics difficult to implement due to the product’s high perishability and high cost of deploying the technology needed to process it. The objectives of this work were to size and delimit the whey production and to analyze, through a case study with two companies, aspects and characteristics of whey powder production, whose raw material is liquid or concentrate whey. There is a great potential for this byproduct to be industrialized if the logistics of raw material collection is improved and policies are adopted to foster research into new technologies and financing. That will allow the country’s self-sufficiency in industrial whey protein and participation in the international market as a supplier in this segment.