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Leprino Nutrition, the speciality ingredient division of Leprino Foods Company, has completed a $35 million capital expansion at its manufacturing facility in Lubbock, Texas, quadrupling the site's microparticulated whey protein production capacity.
The newly commissioned capacity operates incrementally to the site's existing Sweet Whey processing lines and will concentrate on the consolidation and upcycling of externally sourced whey solids. Following the commissioning, the Lubbock site joins the company's facility in Fort Morgan, Colorado, as one of two dedicated production hubs within Leprino Nutrition's network engineering microparticulated dairy proteins.
The investment addresses technical formulation hurdles across the functional food and beverage landscape, where processors attempting to elevate protein concentrations frequently encounter unwanted viscosity spikes, chalkiness, and thermal instability.
"This expansion allows us to bring meaningful volume to the market at exactly the moment the industry needs it," said Angela Queneau, Senior Director of Research and Development at Leprino Nutrition. "Microparticulation is one of the most technically demanding and commercially promising formats in speciality protein today. With our investment in Lubbock, customers can benefit from advanced dairy science coupled with supply confidence to formulate ambitious, high-protein products."
Microparticulation Science and MP PRO C80 Specifications
The operational core of the Lubbock site expansion is dedicated to scaling MP PRO C80™, Leprino Nutrition's proprietary microparticulated whey protein concentrate:
🔬 Uniform Particle Architecture: Utilises a patented thermal and mechanical shear process to produce uniformly sized protein particles calibrated to mirror the physical dimensions of milk fat globules.
🥛 Fat-Mimetic Rheology: Delivers a creamy, fat-like mouthfeel with low fluid viscosity even under elevated protein loading, circumventing the dry, chalky astringency typical of conventional commodity whey protein concentrates.
🔥 Thermal and Processing Stability: Demonstrates functional resilience under commercial high-heat processing conditions, exhibiting low-to-zero foaming during fluid blending and thermal pasteurisation runs.
By providing fat-mimetic functionality alongside concentrated protein delivery, the ingredient enables food scientists and product developers to formulate reduced-fat or high-protein recipes without adding secondary hydrocolloids or textural stabilisers.
Cross-Category Applications
The functional attributes of MP PRO C80 are engineered to support product reformulation across sweet, savoury, and ambient food sectors:
🍦 Dairy and Frozen Desserts: Optimised for puddings, cultured spoonables, ice cream, and frozen desserts requiring rich dairy body without textural freezing defects.
🥣 Dressings, Sauces, and Dips: Acts as an emulsification and viscosity builder across ambient and chilled pourable dressings, dips, and culinary sauces.
🧁 Bakery and Snack Systems: Formulated to integrate into soft-baked goods, snack fillings, and extruded matrices without extracting moisture from the crumb.
Scale Speciality Dairy Ingredients
The Lubbock expansion comes as consumer goods manufacturers continue to formulate dietary protein into diverse mainstream food and beverage categories.
However, as protein gram counts climb, commodity whey proteins can cause product defects during manufacturing, including equipment fouling, viscosity gelation, and phase separation over shelf life. By quadrupling microparticulated processing throughput across its Lubbock and Fort Morgan dual-facility network, Leprino Nutrition provides industrial food processors with reliable multi-site commercial scale for specialised dairy fractions, supporting high-load protein innovation across North American and export markets.
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