TikTok protein craze drives cottage cheese shortages across North America

Cottage cheese has become one of the clearest examples of how a wellness trend can spill out of social media and into grocery aisles. A product once dismissed as diet food is now showing up in cottage cheese toast, bowls, ice cream, pancakes, bagels and flatbreads, and the surge has left some shoppers hunting empty shelves while manufacturers scramble to catch up.

The demand spike is being driven by “protein-maxxing,” a broader push to pack more protein into everyday meals. In Canada, more than 113,000 TikTok videos now carry a cottage cheese hashtag, and searches for cottage cheese recipes on Pinterest and Google jumped sharply in January before staying elevated. Stuart Phillips, a McMaster University kinesiology professor, said the product was long seen as a diet staple before it fell out of fashion and then returned in a new social-media form.

The sales data show how quickly that shift has reshaped the category. U.S. cottage cheese dollar sales reached $1.33 billion in the 52 weeks ending Feb. 25, up 16% from a year earlier, while unit sales rose 11% to 485 million. Private-label products led the category, and Good Culture stood out with dollar sales up 87% to $104 million. Circana data from later 2025 showed the momentum only accelerated, with U.S. retail cottage cheese sales up 20% in the 52 weeks through June 15. That followed roughly 17% annual gains in both 2024 and 2023, an 11% rise in 2022, and a decline in 2021.

That kind of growth has strained production for a fresh dairy item that cannot be scaled overnight. Organic Valley said its cottage cheese sales rose more than 30% in the first half of 2025, and marketing manager Andrew Westrich said, “Organic Valley Cottage Cheese is selling faster than we can make it.” Good Culture founder and chief executive Jesse Merrill said customers were calling, emailing and posting when they could not find the product, and the company said in July 2025 that it was working around the clock to get back in stock. Albertsons chief executive Susan Morris said she had to double-check the numbers because cottage cheese had become such a strong growth category.

The shortage is now showing up in Canada as well, where shoppers have posted about bare shelves and prices that have climbed sharply since 2019. Some consumers say a container can cost nearly $5, and others say prices have tripled in just a few years. What started as a TikTok protein trend has become a national grocery story, exposing how fast digital demand can overwhelm dairy supply chains built for steadier habits.