Colloidal aspects of cheese and protein-based cheese analogues

This short review outlines the need to apply colloid science to develop protein-based cheese analogues. The research should focus on: i) what colloidal structures must be developed and ii) how they can be produced and analysed. The result will permit the development of new alternatives more effectively based on mimicking the behaviour of casein micelle structures and their properties. We conclude that replacing caseins with plant-based proteins without changing the final cheese characteristics is not a straightforward task. More research is needed to create acceptable semi-hard or hard cheese analogues based on a plant protein network. There is still a lack of scientific data on crucial physicochemical properties of most plant-based protein ingredients, e.g. denaturation and aggregation state, surface chemistry, impurities. This hampers the ability to tune processing to achieve the desired colloidal structures. By exploring colloidal interactions in more details, novel structures can be formed leading to the target textural properties.