Amateur cheesemaker here - coincidentally the research side of commercial cheesemaking is already doing very similar things because separating milk into its con

Amateur cheesemaker here - coincidentally the research side of commercial cheesemaking is already doing very similar things because separating milk into its constituent components is more profitable than actually making cheese. I attended a class about a month ago where the message was that in the future we won't make cheese from milk, but rather we'll start with just those caseins that have been extracted and concentrated. The thinking is that even the water in the milk may have other commercial value apart from just the cheesemaking, or at a minimum can be captured and used in lieu of needing an additional water source. Wish they would have gone a little deeper on the science in the article - they mention chymosin for example, but as far as I know the vast majority of chymosin used in commercial cheese production today is already vegan (at least in the US - Europe not necessarily).