The newest dairy alternative comes from sweet potatoes

The newest dairy alternative comes from sweet potatoes Categories: Campus News The newest dairy alternative comes from sweet potatoes Ashton Ahart, News Editor October 14, 2026 Noah Williford Fermentation Sciences lab manager Daniel Parker (left), and lab director Brett Taubman (right) stand in App State’s Chemistry and Fermentation Sciences Service Lab in Mountain Laurel Hall Sept. 30. Two professors in the Fermentation Sciences Program founded a sweet potato milk startup company, seeking to promote nutrition and combat food waste. Championed by Brett Taubman, the director of the Fermentation Sciences Program, and Daniel Parker, the program’s operations and facility manager, Rootsii seeks to create a dairy alternative derived from one of North Carolina’s staple crops. “We’re the sweet potato capital of the world here in North Carolina,” Taubman said. “So we account for about 60% of the national sweet potato production, and we’re the leading global exporters of sweet potatoes.” Taubman has been with App State since 2007 and was a faculty member of the Department of Chemistry until he founded the Fermentation Sciences Program. Fermentation Sciences was later merged with the Chemistry Department in 2018. He got his start in fermentation sciences through his interests in brewing and meat fermentation during his college years. In 2005, Parker started his educational career at App State as a biology major for both his undergraduate and graduate years. He then worked with the Chemistry Department before officially joining the Fermentation Sciences Program in 2018. His main roles as operations and facility manager are to run the analytical lab, conduct for-pay fermentation testing for different beverage industries and facilitate fermentation projects put on by students. Symbiotic cultures of bacteria and yeast for red wine vinegar and kombucha rest on a shelf in the Chemistry and Fermentation Sciences Service Lab in Mountain Laurel Hall Sept. 30. The SCOBYs are used as starters for creating new batches of vinegars. (Noah Williford) With a $1.82 million NCInnovation grant on their side and a patented recipe for their milk, Taubman and Parker intend to limit food waste and create a versatile product that can be transformed into “creamers, ice cream, yogurt and other fermented foods such as sweetpotato- based miso and fermented hot sauce,” according to an Appalachian Today article. “The sweet potatoes themselves are a very ecological-friendly produce. It’s very low in water usage or water requirements,” Parker said. He compared the sustainability of their milk to other dairy alternatives, like almond milk. Almonds are typically grown in hot, dry climates, such as California, which uses around 4.7 to 5.5 million acre-feet of water per year. In addition to lower water usage, Rootsii’s milk product seeks to solve the issue of food rot by using potatoes that are lower than store grade. Only the top grade of sweet potatoes, U.S. No.1, is allowed to be sold in retail stores. This leaves a large amount of potatoes to be thrown away, not because they are spoiled or rotten but because they look unappealing. “We estimate there’s upwards of 60 million pounds a year that are left in the ground to rot. Those are the sweet potatoes that we intend to use down the line,” Taubman said. The company is using the standard cured sweet potatoes but has plans to use sweet potatoes that are of a lower grade but still healthy and edible. The process of obtaining these sweet potatoes lies in communication with the North Carolina Sweetpotato Commission. Taubman and Parker have also been in contact with farmers in the eastern part of North Carolina in order to set up partnerships and distribution channels. They also plan on building a processing facility in the east as part of a future project. They are working on building a processing facility close to home in Western North Carolina. Along with the sustainability aspect of the product, Taubman and Parker stress the nutritional value of their milk, as it is made not only with the nutritious sweet potato but has blended chia seeds in it for extra protein dietary fiber and to “help to emulsify the solution,” Taubman said. “Sweet potatoes are absolutely loaded with starch and dietary fiber and vitamins and minerals and nutrients. And that’s exactly what you want for a plant-based milk, is to be able to transfer that from the plant material into solution,” Taubman said. Though Rootsii is still in its early stages and the product has not yet hit shelves, Taubman and Parker continue to grow their company as they nurture connections with students involved in the Fermentation Science Program, the farmers of North Carolina and lovers of sweet potatoes. 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If you would prefer to make a tax-deductible donation or a recurring monthly gift, please give to The Appalachian Student News Fund through the university here: https://www.givecampus.com/campaigns/54088/donations/new?designation_id=faa93386& Donate About the Contributors Ashton Ahart, News Editor Ashton Ahart (they/them) is a sociology and digital journalism double major from Wake Forest, North Carolina. This is their third year with the Appalachian and first year as News Editor. Noah Williford, Former Photo Editor Noah Williford (he/him) is a junior Communications Studies major and Photography minor from Winston Salem, N.C. This is his third year with The Appalachian.