Startups pushing the boundaries of cottage cheese innovation

Startups have taken notice of Good Culture’s growth in the cottage cheese market after shaking up the category and its recent acquisition by L. Catterton.

Now startups are taking innovation a step further and using cottage cheese as an ingredient.

Smearcase, New York, is turning cottage cheese into an ice cream-like product under the brand name FroCo.  

Founded in 2023 by Joe Rotondo, his sister Gianna and co-founder Drew DiSpirito, FroCo is formulated with cottage cheese, milk, cane sugar, liquid milk protein, pectin and collagen.

For Rotondo, he used cottage cheese to satisfy his sweet tooth while training for a marathon before developing FroCo. Now he feels consumers are catching on to cottage cheese’s versatility.

“People don’t want to eat it out of the tub like yogurt,” he said. “They want to use it as an ingredient.”

Photo: Smearcase

Kendall Kransdorf launched Cotto, New York, in March 2026 to offer whipped cottage cheese dips.

“I first started making them for myself and was focusing on whole food protein sources, which included cottage cheese,” Kransdorf said.

The dips feature cottage cheese, nonfat Greek yogurt to help keep the cottage cheese firm after blending it, buttermilk powder, shiitake mushroom powder to add an umami flavor, lemon juice, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, vinegar, chives, mustard seed, parsley, dill and psyllium husk.

Each 8-oz tub provides 210 calories and 23 to 25 grams of protein, depending on the variety, Kransdorf said.

“We blend all the curds so it’s a smooth texture,” she said. “It’s more like the texture of hummus where it’s whipped and airy. It doesn’t look like cottage cheese.”

Photo: Grace Ann Leadbetter

Before going to market, Kransdorf tested the product in a New York City commercial kitchen and sold Cotto for local pickup from October 2025 through January 2026.

“I did it all through social media, which I began in August 2025,” she said. “This gave me an initial feeler of ‘does this resonate with people?’ ‘Are people excited about this?’”

Early adopters loved the product, Kransdorf said, which signaled it was time to go-to-market.

“There was a lot of people already making things like this in their own kitchen but didn’t always have time to do so because people want convenience at the end of the day,” she said. “I also used this channel for flavors. Through this test launch, I was able to narrow in on what people were most excited about. What I found was there was some excitement about sweet flavors, but the vast majority was about savory flavors.”

Flavors include french onion, garden ranch and buffalo.  

Monica McClellan is the founder of Curd, Washington, a refrigerated product that is high-protein, high-fiber pudding formulated with cottage cheese.

The pudding launched in Pop Up Grocer on April 10 and comes in banana coconut cream pie, chocolate creme and vanilla cinnamon swirl varieties. Each 8-oz jar provides 17 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber.

Ingredients for each flavor include cottage cheese, chia seeds, dates, date syrup, banana, cocoa powder, vanilla extract, cinnamon, coconut cream powder, inulin fiber and milk powder. 

McClellan developed Curd three months postpartum after having her second child. The goal was to offer postpartum women something to sustain their newfound stage of motherhood.

With cottage cheese already a staple in her diet, McClellan began testing the product by adding other ingredients.

“I started combining cottage cheese with chia seeds and inulin fiber,” she said. “Then I started adding in other ingredients like dates, date syrup, cocoa powder, vanilla extract and banana to make it taste better. As I started making it more, I was realizing it was getting me through the mornings that were crazy with no sleep.”

Dairy Farmers of America (DFA), Kansas City, Kan., has added Mulu, a high-protein cottage cheese brand, to its portfolio.

The product contains 18 grams of complete protein per half-cup serving and features a whey-and-casein two-layer formulation for fast and sustained protein delivery, according to the company.

“Consumers are increasingly looking for protein options that deliver performance without compromising taste,” said Kristen Coady, chief innovation and brand officer at DFA. “Mulu brings that together through real dairy — offering a high protein, rich, creamy texture, along with live active cultures to help support gut health and no artificial flavors.”

Capitalizing on the protein boom

Adding protein to products has reached  most categories in food and beverage and has spurred demand for cottage cheese.

For the 52-week period ended March 22, cottage cheese sales volume has risen 13% compared with 2025, and dollar sales have risen 18% during that time. The growth comes even as the price per unit has risen 4.6% to $3.31 during the past year.

Since turning his dessert into Smearcase’s FroCo, Rotondo has been bullish on the cottage cheese category. The company won the Real California Milk Excelerator $100,000 grand prize as well as the Albertsons Companies Innovation Launchpad Competition $200,000 prize that was held on March 3 at Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, Calif.

“Obviously cottage cheese is a hot commodity these days,” he said. “A lot of manufacturers are at capacity, but the CMAB (The California Milk Advisory Board) has been great partners to help us secure our supply chain. They’ve helped us find manufacturers and helped us support retail launches.”

Smearcase launched nationwide at Sprouts Farmers Market, which Rotondo attributes as a huge win for the startup. Smearcase also will be rolling out semi-national into Fresh Thyme Market in April as well as semi-national into The Fresh Market in May.

Rotondo predicts Smearcase will be in about 1,500 doors by the end of this year.

“Sprouts is our first nationwide banner and we launched our three original SKUs (stock-keeping units) there,” he said. “We’re expanding our Whole Foods presence in the northeast region then we’re in discussions with Albertsons to launch a few key banners there.”

Following a successful pilot testing in the commercial kitchen, Kransdorf was able to scale Cotto with a co-manufacturer. Cotto also won The Next Fairway Find pitch competition, presented by Naturally New York and Fairway Market, held in March.

The prize package, valued at $12,000, included store placement in Fairway locations, a cash prize, and marketing support. 

“As a newer brand, to have that support as we scale into a larger format grocery environment is awesome,” she said. “Fairway offers premium and interesting products in their assortment, but it’s a store where people are doing more of their weekly grocery shopping. There will be a ton of learnings from going into those stores.”  

Looking ahead, expanding into the natural channel at larger retailers regionally over the next year is Kransdorf’s goal for Cotto.

“As we grow and learn and refine the product, I do think this is something that can live in conventional grocery as well,” she said.

Curd began self-manufacturing its product in its Washington-based facility.

Photo: Fenomenal

With a co-manufacturer now in place, McClellan’s focused on finalizing sourcing and getting onboarded before going into too many retailers, she said.

Cottage cheese is the foundation of Curd’s puddings, but the bigger mission for the company’s products is to have whole food protein come from real ingredients, McClellan said.

“You have Goodles coming in and redesigning mac and cheese,” she said. “I want to do that on the comfort side of things. I want to focus on whole food giving the protein and I’m not adding anything else in like fillers or protein isolates.

“As we expand into other comfort foods, the protein source might change depending on what makes sense for that product.” 

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