Turning Social Chatter Into Product Insights

Cottage cheese became the biggest social media story of 2023 in the food business. U.S. sales of large- and small-curd cottage cheese, a sleepy category for decades, rocketed up by 16.6% for the 52 weeks ended September 13 in supermarkets, drug stores, select club stores, and other major retail formats, according to Circana data. That wasn’t because millions of American consumers simply woke up one day craving a dish of cottage cheese and sliced pears.

While some new products were already moving the needle a bit on the category in the last several years, cottage cheese sales didn’t boom until social influencers got involved—heavily. In early 2023, several began discovering the versatility of cottage cheese and demonstrating how this highly nutritious, protein-packed, low-calorie food could be smoothed in a blender to serve as a base for “ice cream” cookie dough and many other recipes.

Melissa Ben-Ishay, CEO of food company Baked by Melissa, helped kick things off with recipes for her 2.2 million TikTok followers such as cottage cheese with cucumber on toast. Food blogger Jake Cohen enthused online about cottage cheese cookie dough. And after cottage cheese maker Good Culture contracted her, Hannah Bronfman—who describes herself on Instagram as an “activist author” and “angel investor”—showed off her cottage-cheese ice cream recipe on Instagram.

“We made sure we had a comprehensive social strategy, so that when lightning struck, we were ready,” says Ryan Fallgren, Good Culture’s brand manager. “It’s not realistic to say that you can tell when something will go viral. You’ve got to make sure you have preparation and products in place with a social strategy and you’re ready to move on it.”

Other cottage cheese brands responded by fielding their own flurry of recipes online and even introducing new products. Hiland Dairy, for example, likes to point to its Cottage Cheese Toast recipe, picking up on the internet meme for avocado toast that has been tremendously popular with Americans. The company developed the recipe with Lolo’s Desserts, another social media influencer.

Dairy Farmers of America has responded more robustly, with its Kemps brand recently introducing Smooth Cottage Cheese (pictured) aimed at kids and coming in three varieties, each tied to a popular children’s entertainment brand, such as Peppa Pig. “Kids will like it because it’s smoother and creamy, and moms will like it because it has twice the protein of kids’ yogurts,” says Rachel Kyllo, senior vice president of marketing and innovation for Dairy Farmers of America.

Meanwhile, Lifeway Foods, which long has made farmer cheese, has tacked heavily into social media listening and marketing because its product has a taste and nutritional profile similar to cottage cheese but has a smoother texture.

“We’ve taken a step out of the process and essentially blended it for people. It’s a step saver,” says Lifeway CEO Julie Smolyansky. The brand has “bridged” to the cottage cheese phenomenon through social media marketing, including its presentation of farmer cheese recipes that have garnered more than 300 million views. Recently, the company decided to devote more manufacturing capacity to the category.

But while the huge spike in social media interest came last summer, cottage cheese may have a long tail. “If you looked only at social media, you’d think that people have stopped thinking about it,” says Jacques Botbol, chief marketing officer for product consultancy Tastewise. “But our data helps us see that this peak has begun appearing in menu data as restaurants have begun to include cottage cheese ice cream on their menus. So it’s not a one-time thing but a sustaining trend that’s actually growing.”

Kyllo agrees. “We don’t see this as a short-term bump, because it’s something that plays into what consumers are looking for,” she says. “It’s going to be a continuing trend. Our goal is to play a major role in making sure the growth continues in this segment.”