Growing Demand for U.S. Dairy Colostrum

This is Tim Hammerich of the Ag Information Network with your Farm of the Future Report.

The “food as wellness” consumer trend has seen a substantial spike in the dairy industry, including a product unfamiliar to a lot of people - powdered bovine colostrum for human consumption. Owners of the brand WonderCow, Rob and Erica Diepersloot, are uncertain as to whether demand will outstrip supply, but they’re bullish on the value colostrum can bring to the dairy sector.

Diepersloot... "As we continue to grow, we want to be able to have the supply to meet that demand. What's interesting is we have a lot of cows in California, in the United States, and a lot of colostrum is produced, but a lot of it may be going towards other avenues as well. Not just like human supplement level, but maybe like lower value products. When you bring it to that human-level quality, there’s more value that it contains. So I think as demand ramps up more is going to be diverted to that higher quality to meet the human consumption demand. And that will help us on dairy farms because it will make our colostrum have more value, you know? So on- farm, it's going to help us. And not just ours, like the dairies throughout the U.S., it kind of gives more monetary value to that extra colostrum that those dairies produce."

The Diepersloots source their colostrum from their family's dairies in California and Colorado.