Ms. Mieke Acda, Nutritonist at FrieslandCampina DMV explained at the recent 6^th Sports & Performance Nutrition 2016 the challenges of the dairy industry of making dairy even more better for athletes and their performance.

Both whey and casein have great recovery benefits: casein when a long recovery period is available, and whey is ideal for fast recovery. The high Leucine content is beneficial as an important trigger to increase muscle protein synthesis. She summarised the innovation opportunities of the dairy industry in sport nutrition: the source for whey protein can impact leucine availability, a natural higher leucine content in protein will result in blocked amino acids, the type of processing of protein influences the casein:whey ratio, blends vs single proteins will influence its breakdown in the stomach, and evening ingestion of protein is proven to be relevant and an attention point for athletes. When this innovation process has been completed, other questions still remain: How do ‘normal food products’ behave (quark, cheese, high protein bars), What is the impact of coingestion of carbs and fat? And Timing; is bed-time ingestion protein really the key?