PlanetDairy expands into 500 ICA stores as hybrid cheese gains ground in Sweden

PlanetDairy has significantly expanded its retail presence in Sweden, with its Pizza Mix and TexMex shredded hybrid cheeses rolling out to nearly 500 ICA stores nationwide, including 80 ICA Maxi locations.

• PlanetDairy’s Pizza Mix and TexMex hybrid shredded cheeses have expanded into nearly 500 ICA stores across Sweden, including 80 ICA Maxi locations, following a successful 30-store pilot.

• The products combine dairy and plant ingredients to reduce CO2 impact while maintaining conventional melt and cooking performance.

• The rollout builds on PlanetDairy’s broader strategy to scale hybrid dairy through retail, private label partnerships, and food manufacturing integration.

The nationwide listing follows a pilot in around 30 selected ICA stores, where the company reported strong sales performance and positive feedback from both shoppers and store operators.

The expansion represents one of the largest hybrid dairy retail rollouts in the Nordic region to date and marks a milestone in PlanetDairy’s commercial strategy, which blends traditional dairy and plant ingredients to reduce environmental impact while maintaining conventional taste and functionality.

The products are designed to melt and cook like standard shredded cheese, targeting everyday applications such as pizza, tacos, and gratins.

PlanetDairy has positioned hybrid dairy as an immediate pathway toward lower-carbon dairy production, while longer-term precision fermentation technologies continue to face cost and regulatory hurdles.

In a 2025 interview with Protein Production Technology International, CEO Jakob Skovgaard said the company ultimately imagined “a future of dairy without cows. All the taste, functionality, and nutrition of dairy. With 80-90% lower CO2. At a comparable price”.

However, he acknowledged that precision fermentation “is currently expensive and is not legal in most of the world,” adding: “Therefore our first step is hybrid dairy because we, and the planet cannot afford to wait.”

For consumers, hybrid represents a new category that sits between conventional dairy and fully plant-based alternatives.

“For shoppers and consumers, it’s a new concept,” Skovgaard said in that interview. “It doesn’t fit neatly into the dairy or plant ‘boxes’ they are used to. So we need to establish this as a third alternative.”

PlanetDairy’s development approach has focused heavily on sensory performance, particularly in applications where plant-based alternatives have historically struggled.

“Taste is king,” Skovgaard told PPTI in 2025. “Most plant-based dairy alternatives do not deliver on taste compared to traditional dairy. They are also generally inferior on nutrition and do not function the same, e.g. meltability on a pizza. Taste is still the number one aspect to crack when we develop new products. Everything else comes after.”

The ICA pilot appears to have validated that strategy, with PlanetDairy citing strong shopper uptake before the broader listing.

While PlanetDairy has launched its own brand in Denmark, Sweden and Finland, the company has previously indicated that larger-scale climate impact will come through private label partnerships and food manufacturing integration.

“We have focused mostly on our branded launch for the first couple of years of commercialization. We love that business, but in the big picture it is more of a proof of concept,” Skovgaard said in 2025. “The scale will come from private label partnerships with big retailers and from application of our technology in food manufacturing.”

The company’s first private label launch came with Albert Heijn in the Netherlands, where two hybrid milks were introduced earlier this year in collaboration with Farm Dairy. Skovgaard described that as “a good example of a private label partnership which has significant volume potential and therefore significant climate impact.”

Beyond retail dairy cases, PlanetDairy is also working with large food manufacturers, including major pizza and ready-meal producers, to integrate hybrid cheese into finished products.

“This also have significant potential and can take our business to a completely new level,” Skovgaard said.

One advantage of hybrid, compared with fully animal-free proteins derived from precision fermentation, is regulatory alignment.

“The hybrid products we develop sit within the current regulatory framework. So we can get our products into the market,” Skovgaard said in the PPTI interview.

That positioning allows PlanetDairy to scale within existing dairy supply chains, working with established production partners rather than requiring entirely new infrastructure.

“From a supply chain perspective we will be working with established players – there is already plenty of capacity available and in most cases only limited new investments are required to implement our solutions,” he said.

PlanetDairy describes its approach as a 'silent transition' – reducing emissions without forcing consumers to adopt entirely new categories or behaviors.

“Taste + CO2 reduction. No compromise,” Skovgaard said when asked how the company communicates hybrid to retailers still thinking in binary terms of plant-based versus conventional.

One of the company’s core challenges over the next 12 months, he added, is driving awareness and trial.

“Generating awareness and trial of hybrid dairy products – is both a challenge and an opportunity,” he said. “Like the pizza with hybrid cheese - same taste, just 30% less CO2. We call that the silent transition.”

Hybrid dairy remains nascent across Europe, but PlanetDairy sees momentum building in several markets.

“Benelux seem to be quite far in and there is a huge political pressure to drive the protein transition,” Skovgaard said in 2025. “Scandinavia, Germany and the UK are other areas with significant movement.”

The ICA rollout suggests that Swedish retailers are increasingly willing to test hybrid formats at scale, particularly where they can contribute to climate commitments without sacrificing shopper experience.

Ultimately, Skovgaard said the market would decide how far hybrid dairy evolves once precision fermentation becomes widely available and affordable.

“When precision fermentation overcomes the obstacles of availability, price and regulatory approval, we believe the market will naturally gravitate towards it,” he said. “But even with casein and whey protein stemming from precision fermentation we believe that products will remain hybrid in many different variants.”

For now, however, nearly 500 Swedish stores represent a tangible step toward that future – one pizza at a time.