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WESTBY, Wis. – Westby Cooperative Creamery has made a $1 million equipment investment to process acid whey, the byproduct of cottage cheese production. The creamery has seen a demand for their product while simultaneously experiencing a change in the market for byproducts.
“For several years, Westby had a client that directly purchased the acid whey for use as an ingredient in their operation,” Emily Bialkowski said. “The pandemic brought that business to a screeching halt, so we had a lot of acid whey on our hands with no place to sell it or put it.”
Bialkowski is the sales and marketing manager for Westby Cooperative Creamery.
The creamery initially disposed of the acid whey when they lost the market to sell it, said Bialkowski.
“Proper disposal of this byproduct was costing as much as $50,000 every month, and that’s what drove us to invest in processing the acid whey ourselves,” Bialkowski said.
The equipment has been in use since June 2021 and processes the acid whey into two saleable products; whey permeate and whey protein. The permeate is used as animal feed and the protein is sold to be used as an ingredient in human or animal nutritional supplements.
“The process allows us to sell the filtered material in a more desirable form to a wider customer base,” Bialkowski said.
During the cottage cheese making process, about 14% of skim milk is turned into dry curd, so 86% is turned into unprocessed acid whey. Every day, approximately 150,000 pounds of Westby’s production is untreated acid whey.
The acid whey is sent through ultrafiltration membranes where the protein is pulled off which creates the first saleable product, whey protein. The byproduct of the protein process is sent to a reverse osmosis system where the permeate is pulled out, creating the second saleable product of whey permeate. The remaining water is filtered one more time, leaving the cooperative with more than 12,000 gallons of plain water each day.
“It is the goal of the creamery to eventually reuse the water consumed from filtering acid whey,” Bialkowski said. “We are hoping to use the water for cleaning purposes.”
The cooperative produces approximately 17 million pounds of cottage cheese annually. Westby Cooperative is the only remaining cottage cheese manufacturer in Wisconsin.
“We can only hypothesize that the time and attention needed to make cottage cheese became less appealing to other creameries,” Bialkowski said. “It is a specialty product requiring experienced cheesemakers diligently watching time and temperature in every batch.”
Cottage cheese is the creamery’s stalwart product. They make more cottage cheese than any other product. Approximately 44% of the creamery’s revenue is from the sale of cottage cheese.
Westby Cooperative Creamery, founded in 1903, has one manufacturing plant in Westby. There is also a distribution center and cheese store in the community. There are approximately 125 employees, and the operation is owned by 146 small family farms.
“As a dairy cooperative with over 145 small family farms that make their living off the land, we have a responsibility to actively research and invest in practices that help better our environment and the communities we live in,” said Pete Kondrup, general manager. “Turning acid whey into a usable product is one way we can do this.”

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