Opinion The great protein squeeze — and why India should cut taxes on whey

Sure, some of this is marketing doing what it does best, but underneath the noise is something real. There has been a massive uptake of protein globally, further fuelled by GLP-1 usage, which suppresses appetite and results in muscle loss alongside fat loss. In order to counter this, the growing number of GLP-1 users are advised to increase protein intake to preserve lean mass. More people are taking protein seriously, and the myth that protein supplements are only for athletes has broken. A desk jockey and a 65-year-old grandmother are all in on protein.

While a lot of the excess protein demand can be met by a natural diet, the concentrated end of it, the bars, the shakes and the protein cookies, rests on one key ingredient in particular: Whey. Whey, a complete protein, was, until recently, a cheap and slightly inconvenient byproduct of cheese-making. It was a product that dairies were glad to get rid of, which has now become one of the prized ingredients in the global food industry.

The catch is that the rising demand simply cannot be met with increased supply. You get only as much whey as the cheese you make, and converting it into high-grade concentrate or isolate needs specialised processing capacity that takes years and billions of dollars to build. When increased demand cannot be met with an increased supply, the adjustment usually happens through prices.

The prices have shot up and how: Whey concentrate and isolate prices have jumped 108 per cent and 139 per cent respectively over the past two years. In India, the cost of raw whey has jumped from Rs 1475/kg in July 2025 to Rs 3700/kg a year later, according to a protein supplement company. And since India imports most of its whey, this has been compounded by the ever-depreciating rupee.

Here’s where India adds its own (entirely optional) twist to the tale. Being entirely dependent on imports, we tax whey as if it were a luxurious vice. The finished protein tub on the shelf arrives as a “food preparation” and is greeted with a 40 per cent customs duty; even bulk whey protein carries 20 per cent. Add a generous 10 per cent welfare surcharge and GST on top of this, and the price increases by nearly 50 per cent, and that is after GST was mercifully cut from 18 per cent to 5 per cent last year. In a country where protein intake is inadequate across large parts of the population, this is a wonderful gift from the taxman.

One additional kicker here: Indian regulators require an integrated Veterinary Health Certificate verifying that cows producing the milk weren’t fed animal-based feed and were treated humanely. Many American dairy producers couldn’t provide these certifications, forcing Indian companies to buy from European suppliers who charge more.

India’s whey-protein imports run ~23,000 tonnes a year and are rising ~20 per cent annually while domestic production is negligible. So, why is the largest milk-producing country in the world (India accounts for 24 per cent of global milk production) importing almost all of its whey? There are multiple factors at play here.

India doesn’t make enough cheese, and when it does, it’s not the right kind to get whey as the byproduct. An average American consumes about 18 kg of cheese a year; an average Indian’s cheese consumption is a rounding error. India’s dairy runs on milk, curd, ghee, butter and paneer, and the leftover whey from paneer is “acid” whey, mineral-heavy and costly to purify, not the “sweet” whey that cheese-making yields and that protein powder actually needs. So India’s whey is both scarce and the wrong kind.

Then, there’s the structure of the industry. Roughly 60 per cent of the milk that’s sold in India never touches the organised sector at all. And when it does, it is dominated by the big cooperatives, such as Amul, Mother Dairy or KMF, which face a structural limitation. With state governments as partial owners and government appointees on their boards, cooperatives naturally prioritise basic nutrition over premium products. The private players who do have the appetite and the capital for it run into the opposite problem: They can’t reliably lay their hands on enough milk. A country drowning in milk and yet nobody quite placed to take advantage of the demand boom.

To remedy this, my colleague Anisree Suresh, in a 2024 paper, recommends we go upstream and fix the industry structure. We need to corporatise the cooperatives, so they can raise capital, professionalise management and buy the technology that value-added dairy demands. Further, taper the subsidies and financial support that flow overwhelmingly to them, which would push cooperatives towards being market-driven. We also don’t need to regulate milk from “non-veg” cows, but have simple labelling requirements that will do the job.

Finally, given the nature of the structural issues that limit whey production, a high import tariff on whey makes little sense – there is no infant industry to protect here. A processing ecosystem and cheese preference in the nation cannot be tariffed into existence. Therefore, cutting the basic duty to around 5 per cent, closer to the GST rate for whey protein, makes immediate sense. Yes, the world has made whey more expensive, but we don’t need to make it way more expensive with our taxes.

The writer is professor of Economics, Takshashila Institution