Visit a supermarket or coffee shop and customers are offered plant-based substitutes for cow's milk made from almonds, soya, oats or coconuts.
In the UAE, camel milk is also widely available.
Soon there could be another choice in the Emirates, with greater availability of A2 milk, a type of cow's milk that some think brings health benefits.
Sharjah has announced it is buying A2/A2 cows and their milk is poised to reach the mass market possibly next year. A wheat farm in the Mleiha area will start with a herd of 1,000 cows.
Ruler of Sharjah
Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Muhammad Al Qasimi, Ruler of Sharjah, said the goal of the project was not commercial but to “ensure human health”, reported the official Wam news agency.
“We will offer consumers the milk as it is, just like the milk taken directly from the cows without any intervention or reduction in its components,” he said.
About 30 per cent of the protein content is beta-casein.
Cow's milk typically contains a mix of A1 and A2 beta-casein. But cows with a particular genetic make up, sometimes referred to as A2/A2, produce milk with only the A2 type.
There have been claims that A2 milk may reduce the risk of illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease, although these suggestions remain unproven.
Ian Givens, professor of food chain nutrition at the University of Reading in the UK, who has researched A2 milk, said the overall evidence of health benefits is “weak and largely inconclusive”.
A difference between the types of milk is that A1 beta-casein releases a peptide, or chain of amino acids, called beta-casomorphin-7. One area of interest is whether this peptide is associated with inflammation in the digestive tract.
“We have done such a study and found no effect of A1/A2 versus A2 milk in subjects who we screened to show they were not lactose intolerant. But I am not sure the study had adequate power,” Prof Givens said.
Sports science researchers are also interested in A2 milk.
Scientists at the University of Kent are looking at whether milk that contains A1 beta-casein is linked to asthma and another obstructive airway condition, exercise-induced bronchoconstriction.
A2 Milk Company, the largest A2 milk producer in New Zealand, also sells in Australia — where A2 milk has a more than 10 per cent market share — North America, China and South Korea.
It said studies had looked at people with milk intolerance or problems with lactose, the milk sugar.
“All report improvements in digestive symptoms, such as stomach discomfort, on consuming A2 protein only milk,” said the company, which is not linked to the Sharjah project.
“More recently, research in healthy toddlers found decreased constipation after consuming toddler milk drinks [made with A2 milk] compared to conventional milk products.”
The company, which was founded in 2000, said these findings suggested A2 milk may offer benefits to a “broader range of individuals” but acknowledged that further research was needed.
However, there has been scepticism about some research finding health benefits associated with A2 milk, because it has been funded by the producers.
The company makes no secret of the fact that it has financed some of the research into A2 milk, but said governments and industry leaders, including Swiss giant Nestle, had also supported studies.
Often seen as different to “regular” milk, A2 milk is actually the original form.
The mutation that caused cows to begin producing milk that contains A1 beta-casein (which differs from the A2 protein in only one of its 209 amino acids) is thought to have originated thousands of years ago and spread widely.
Holsteins, the black and white cows familiar to many, tend to have a lower percentage of A2 genes than breeds such as Jersey, Guernsey and Normande cows.
Some cows, known as A1/A1, have milk that contains only A1 beta-casein, while milk from A1/A2 animals has both forms. Genetic testing is available, giving farmers the option to introduce A2 herds.
Some farmers may be tempted for business reasons to do so. According to a report published last year by Polaris Market Research, the A2 milk market was worth $1.87 billion in 2021 and is set to be worth $4.83 billion by the end of the decade.
“Other mainstream dairy players have entered the market, and the category is no longer niche,” the a2 Milk Company said.
A2 milk was available in the UK through a joint venture involving the a2 Milk Company, although this ended a number of years ago after only modest sales. Among the other A2 milk producers is the Alexandre Family Farm in the US.
In some markets there are practical obstacles to mass-market sales, such as difficulties in keeping A2 milk separate from other milk when large numbers of farms supply individual dairies.
“You get milk from hundreds of farms a day going into the same tank,” said Phil Garnsworthy, professor of dairy science at the University of Nottingham in the UK.
Prof Garnsworthy has looked at ways to improve milk, such as by achieving higher levels of a type of polyunsaturated fatty acid called linoleic acid. He said efforts faltered because it was not possible to keep the milk separate.
A2 milk is, he said, one of the numerous types of cow’s milk associated with possible benefits of one type or another.
“There’s been all sorts of things like that,” he said. “There was milk that was supposed to help you go to sleep only produced from cows milked at night. It had a high melatonin [a hormone produced in dark conditions] content.
“It did help people go to sleep but the market wasn’t there because they couldn’t keep it separate.”
