Where to Find Lactose-Free Cream
For people who are lactose intolerant or simply mindful of their digestion, finding a good lactose-free cream isn't always easy. Fortunately, the offering has expanded significantly in recent years across French, Belgian, and Swiss retailers. Here's an overview of the available options, along with a tip for making your own lactose-free cream at home.
In France
Most major retailers now offer at least one lactose-free cream, usually found in the chilled dairy aisle next to regular creams:
- Naturalia: Crème Grandeur Nature (30% fat), a full-fat option ideal for cooking and sauces.
- Carrefour: Elle & Vire light thick lactose-free cream (4% fat), perfect for lighter preparations.
- E.Leclerc: LAC brand full-fat lactose-free crème fraîche.
- Auchan: Full-fat lactose-free liquid cream (30% fat), versatile for both sweet and savoury dishes.
- Intermarché: Elle & Vire light thick lactose-free cream.
- Monoprix: Le Gall lactose-free cream, a quality option from a well-known Breton dairy.
In Belgium
The Belgian offering is more concentrated but well represented in the main supermarket chains:
- Carrefour, Delhaize, and Colruyt: you'll find Ballade Full-Fat Cream 0% Lactose 35% fat, as well as products from the Dilea range, which specialises in lactose-free dairy.
In Switzerland
Swiss retailers have each developed their own range:
- Migros: aha! Full-fat lactose-free cream (35% fat), part of their dedicated food intolerance line.
- Coop: Free From Panna Intera UHT lactose-free, a long-life cream that's easy to keep on hand.
- Lidl: Laktosefrei crème fraîche (35% fat).
The Homemade Alternative: Making Your Own Lactose-Free Cream
If you can't find lactose-free cream nearby, or if you'd rather use a specific cream (raw cream, cream from a local producer, a particular organic brand), there's a simple and effective solution: make it yourself from regular cream.
The principle relies on adding lactase, the very enzyme that lactose-intolerant people lack. This enzyme breaks down lactose (the sugar in milk) into two perfectly digestible simple sugars: galactose and glucose. The result is a cream whose nutritional profile remains nearly identical, but whose lactose has been completely converted.
How to do it:
- Get hold of lactase from a pharmacy (often sold as drops or capsules meant to be taken before a meal).
- Add the recommended dose (generally a few drops per half-litre of cream, but check the product instructions).
- Mix well and let it rest in the refrigerator for about 24 hours. The enzyme needs this time to break down all the lactose.
- After this time, your cream is ready to use just like any store-bought lactose-free cream.
Note: the cream will taste slightly sweeter than the original, because the released glucose and galactose have a higher sweetening power than lactose. This is perfectly normal and even appreciated in many preparations, especially desserts.
In Conclusion
Whether you live in France, Belgium, or Switzerland, you now have several options for cooking lactose-free without giving up cream. And if your local store's selection doesn't suit you, the homemade lactase method remains an affordable, flexible, and reliable way to turn any regular cream into a perfectly digestible one.