No more curds: Kemps releases smooth cottage cheese

Would your 4-year-old eat more cottage cheese if it looked and tasted more like yogurt?

Kemps is betting kids will.

The St. Paul-based dairy company has released a line of smooth cottage cheese with blended fruit, a first for a category long defined by its curds.

"It's designed to be very kid-friendly — they like products that are smooth and creamy," said Rachel Kyllo, senior vice president of marketing and innovation at Kemps. "And it has two to three times the amount of protein [10 grams] found in kids' yogurts."

The company has been looking for ways to rejuvenate interest in cottage cheese as its dairy-case cousin, yogurt, has stolen the spotlight. But instead of standing out as a cottage cheese product, Kemps is trying to blend-in as a yogurt alternative.

"It's really more like a yogurt, which we know kids love," said Nathaniel Renteria, senior brand manager for Kemps.

As yogurt surged in popularity over the past decade, production of cottage cheese has remained flat.

Americans now consume less than 2 pounds of cottage cheese per capita annually, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That's half the consumption seen in the 1970s and 80s.

By comparison, yogurt was gobbled up at a rate of nearly 10 pounds per person in 2021, double the consumption rate at the turn of the century.

Yet cottage cheese has all the buzzy elements shoppers are looking for these days — high protein, low sugar and probiotics.

"I think cottage cheese is having a new day," Kyllo said. "Consumers are looking for ways to get protein and low sugar, so it's back in consideration."

A Kemps consumer survey showed 40% of people would be more likely to eat cottage cheese if it had a different texture and tasted better.

"There's a little bit of magic in this formulation," Kyllo said. "Our R+D team developed a proprietary technology that smooths out the curds."

Kemps, owned since 2011 by the Dairy Farmers of America cooperative, is also partnering with Hasbro to bring cartoon characters like PJ Masks and Peppa Pig to the packaging.