Scientists believe they are on the cusp of a huge change in the way we produce milk in history. Cows won't be needed.

Race to Bioengineer Milk

Please consider Made Without Humans or Cows: Inside the Race to Bioengineer Milk.

From Silicon Valley to Switzerland, hundreds of millions of dollars are being pumped into a new technology to produce "real milk" - containing identical casein and whey proteins to the genuine article - but without any humans, cows or other animals involved at all.

There is a lot at stake. The global dairy industry was worth $413bn in 2017 while the market for infant formula is expected to top $70bn this year, according to Save the Children.

From animal cruelty on factory farms to deforestation and a rising portion of the emissions linked to climate change, raising cattle to produce milk is facing a growing reputational challenge.

"If you see how cows are treated in the milking process… from a moral standpoint it's appalling to most people," says Niccolo Manzoni, founding partner at Five Seasons Ventures, an agricultural technology fund based in Paris.

A study published by the World Health Organisation just last week involving almost 30,000 children across 16 countries suggested breast-feeding has a "protective effect" in staving off fat tissue. Bottle-fed babies, the study found, are 25pc more likely to end up obese.

Corporate giants such as US-based DowDuPont, BASF, Nestle, as well as start-ups such as Sugarlogix, Gnubiotics Sciences and Jennewein Biotechnologie are busy pouring money into lab research. They are developing products that are very similar to human milk, a complex hybrid of over 1000 proteins and a unique ingredient called human milk oligosaccharide (HMO).