A month after selling a majority stake in its business, cottage cheese maker Good Culture is receiving additional cash to further fund its growth ambitions with a $55 million investment from Semcap Food & Nutrition.
The investment firm first partnered with Good Culture in 2021 as the food maker looked to upend the cottage cheese space by prioritizing simple ingredients and nutrient-rich profiles.
“Since our first meeting with [Good Culture Co-Founder and CEO Jesse Merrill] and his team, we’ve been energized by their ambition to reinvent a dormant category and conviction that cottage cheese could be reimagined for today’s consumer,” John Haugen, managing partner of Semcap Food & Nutrition, said in a statement.
Good Culture announced in January that private-equity firm L Catterton purchased a majority stake in the 11-year-old cottage cheese maker. A once-sleepy category popular with older shoppers, cottage cheese has seen demand surge amid growing consumer interest in protein.
A 100-gram serving of full-fat cottage cheese contains 11.5 grams of protein, compared to 8.7 grams in full-fat Greek yogurt, according to the University of California, Davis. Cottage cheese's high protein content has pushed sales up 20% in U.S. retail for the 52 weeks ended June 15, 2025, according to a Circana data cited by CNN, following increases of 17% in both 2023 and 2024.
During the past three years, Good Culture sales have increased by nearly four times, while the broader cottage cheese category has jumped nearly 60% over the same period, according to the company. Good Culture has expanded its reach in clean-label dairy with sour cream and cream cheese.
The prospects for future growth has attracted the interest of investors such as Semcap, which also has invested in food makers Purely Elizabeth and Kite Hill. Semcap invests in “transformative food brands” in sustainable modern health that demonstrate a “clear proof of concept and scalability.”
