Egor Knyazev was a 16-year-old in southern Ukraine who wanted to improve his looks, his height, and his health. And he wanted to become famous on the internet, famous enough to make money.
Those desires soon led him to another quest: Ccolostrum.
Inspired by popular “healthmaxxing” and “looksmaxxing” social media influencers, many American and some European, Knyazev befriended a local farmer on Facebook Marketplace who lives about 50 miles (80 kilometers) outside Odessa. Surprised and bemused, he agreed to sell Knyazev some of the salty, thick drink some call “liquid gold.” It’s the first form of milk produced by a mammal, in this case, a cow — and increasingly also a rare and expensive ingredient pursued by the fitness-obsessed and health-conscious.
Sure enough, Knyazev, now 18, tells Sentient the video he made about colostrum “blew up” his Instagram page, where he goes by @smartbones21, gaining him about 600 followers (he has about 2,100 now). It got by far some of the most views of any of his videos: 186,000, per Instagram’s count.
But he hasn’t been able to find colostrum since. His local farmer’s cows won’t give birth again for another year, and convinced the raw form is the best, he doesn’t want to take the powder or capsule forms that have become popular enough to end up on mainstream store shelves. A small jar at Target, Amazon, or Costco can run buyers in the U.S. anywhere from $15 to $100, depending on the brand. The colostrum that ends up on shelves can only be sourced from dairy farmers who have a surplus; farmers have to ensure their own baby animals have enough, because it’s essential for calves’ health. In other words, there’s a finite amount of this trendy substance for the colostrum-curious.
Knyazev fears the competition for colostrum will only grow more fierce. “The amount of animals that are giving birth will not increase, but not only that, I think that because more people are trying to buy it, it will be not in stock and preordered more,” he says.
A shortage in rural Saskatchewan, Canada, this past spring illustrated the growing demand among both livestock producers and consumers. Celebrities have promoted the product as part of a wellness regimen. A university medical researcher in Nebraska wants to study its possible applications for neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. One Amish producer who doesn’t use the internet is even bringing on someone to help with social media.
Colostrum supplement sales have jumped 3,000% in the last two years, according to a February Bloomberg article citing NielsenIQ data. But unlike other dairy-based trends like cottage cheese or whey protein powder, it’s harder to just ramp up production, because colostrum is so unique: It only gets produced at a specific time, after mother cows give birth, and so far, research on synthetic colostrum is in such early stages that nearly all companies on the market today source from animals. And that raises questions about how exactly the industry plans to grow.
That might mean, like Knyazev suggests, that it gets more expensive. But it might also create new ethical dilemmas in a landscape o