Plant-based milk powders: technological challenges, nutritional opportunities, and market outlook

The global demand for plant-based milk has increased in response to health, sustainability, and dietary concerns. Liquid products are not without their advantages, but powdered forms offer unique benefits, including shelf stability, lightweight distribution, and versatile food applications. Despite the growth in market value, there is a paucity of systematic research addressing the processing of plant-based milk powders, particularly the influence of drying technologies and formulation strategies on yield, nutrient retention, and functionality. This review synthesizes recent advances in the production of plant-based milk powders, focusing on pretreatment, drying technologies, and carrier systems. Spray drying remains the dominant industrial process and is valuable for scalability but is limited by stickiness, poor flow, and low solubility. Enzymatic pretreatments have been shown to yield consistent increases in yield and improvements in suspension stability. The optimization of feed concentration and atomization parameters is imperative, and studies have identified inlet temperatures ranging from 140 to 170 °C as optimal for balancing yield and nutrient retention. The influence of carrier agents on performance is a subject of considerable interest. Maltodextrin, for example, has been shown to increase drying efficiency, although it concurrently reduces nutritional quality. Protein and gum-based carriers, while demonstrating potential, remain underexplored. A variety of alternative methods have been demonstrated to increase the retention of bioactive compounds, reduce energy consumption, and improve flowability. These methods include dehumidified air spray drying, pulse spray drying, freeze drying, and foam-mat drying. However, these methods are not easily scalable. The application of agglomeration and postprocessing techniques has been demonstrated to further enhance the reconstitution process and improve consumer acceptability. The advancement of plant-based milk powders necessitates the establishment of a connection between laboratory findings and industrial application. Subsequent research should concentrate on the optimization of hybrid drying technologies, the diversification of carrier systems, and the development of standardized protocols to ensure nutritional quality, functionality, and commercial viability.