Tecnológico nacional de México

Instituto Tecnológico de Tuxtepec

Maestría en Ciencias de los Alimentos
Tecnología de Alimentos de origen animal

Milk storage, transport and quality assurance

Presentan
Josué Lucas Merino
Milk is a raw material in the manufacture of
several food products. These products are
predominantly made in dairy factories.

Their mode of operation is dominated by the

properties of the raw material. Some typical
characteristics of the dairy industry are as
follows:

1. Milk is a liquid, and it is homogeneous. This implies that transport and

storage are relatively simple and it greatly facilitates the application of
continuous processes.
2. Milk properties vary according to source,
season, and storage conditions, and during
keeping. This may imply that processes have
to be adapted to the variation in properties.

3. Milk is highly perishable and the same is

true of many intermediates between raw
milk and the final product. This requires
strict control of hygiene and storage
conditions.

4. Raw milk may contain pathogenic bacteria,

and some of these can thrive in milk. This also
requires strict control of hygiene and the
application of stabilization processes.
 5. Milk contains several components, and it can be separated
in fractions in various ways, e.g., in cream and skim milk, in
powder and water, or in curd and whey. Moreover, several
physical transformations and fermentations can be applied.
This means that a wide variety of products can be made.

6. Relatively small amounts of raw material

(besides milk) are needed for the manufacture of
most milk products, but consumption of water
and energy may be high.

7. One and the same unit operation can often be applied in the
manufacture of a range of products. This includes heat treatment,
cooling, cream separation, and homogenization.
Consequently, a thorough knowledge of the physics, chemistry, and
microbiology of milk and its components is needed to understand the changes
occurring, both intended and undesired, in the material during processing.

The objectives of the production process are of paramount importance. The

ensuing requirements can be grouped as follows:

1. Safety of the product for the

consumer. The health of the
consumer can be threatened by
pathogenic bacteria (or their toxins)
and by toxic or carcinogenic
substances. The first of these nearly
always provides by far the most
serious hazard.
2. Quality of the product. Apart from product safety, which may be considered a
quality aspect, this generally involves:

Appearance: Eating quality:

Nutritional
color and taste, odor, and
value.
texture. mouthfeel.

Keeping quality or shelf life, i.e., the length of time a

product can be kept before it significantly decreases
in quality or may have become a health hazard.
3. Quality of the process The process should be safe and convenient for
the staff involved as well as for other people in the vicinity. It should not
cause environmental problems, such as pollution, or excessive depletion
of exhaustible resources.
 PRESERVATION METHODS

The manufacture of milk products virtually always involves some form of

preservation, which means taking measures to prevent, or at least postpone,
deterioration. Most technologists primarily think of deterioration caused by
microorganisms, but it can also involve enzymatic, chemical, or physical
changes.

To counteract microbial action, one can (1) kill

the microorganisms, (2) physically remove
them, (3) inhibit their growth (although this will
not always prevent metabolic action by the
enzyme systems of the organism), and (4)
prevent contamination with microbes.
 Several preservation methods can be applied, and all have specific
advantages and disadvantages. We will briefly discuss the more important
methods.
1. Heat treatment. This is generally
the method of choice for liquid
products. It is active against
microbes and enzymes. The
method is convenient, flexible,
well-studied, and fairly
inexpensive. The disadvantage is
that undesirable chemical
reactions occur, especially at high
heating intensity, for instance,
causing off-flavors.
2. Removal of microbes. A suitable and fairly inexpensive method is
microfiltration. Because of the very small pore size needed, say 0.5 μm,
fat globules and some of the casein micelles are also removed. This
makes the method impractical for many milk products. It is used for water,
cheese brine, and also, in combination with other unit operations, for
liquid milk.

Another method is bactofugation,

i.e., the removal of bacteria and
especially spores in a centrifugal
separator. It operates at about
70°C, and part of the casein is
also separated.
3. Drying. At high concentrations of water-soluble substances, most
microorganisms stop growing, presumably because the contents of the
cell become highly concentrated. There is considerable variation among
microbes and with the nature of the solute, but a concentration
corresponding to a water activity below 0.65 suffices in most milk
products.

*Dried milk is thus free from microbial growth*

4. Mild preservatives. This means high concentrations of salt (e.g.,

cheese), acid (e.g., fermented milks), or sugar (e.g., sweetened condensed
milk).
QUALITY ASSURANCE

Quality assurance is of paramount importance in all food manufacture

and handling. It involves a coherent system of activities that assures
(guarantees) that the products meet a set of defined quality marks

Food technologists then play a key role in translating quality aspects into
defined criteria and in developing methods for determining whether and to
what extent a criterion is met. For some of these, the value can be
estimated by more or less objective methods (e.g., safety, shelf life, and
dispersibility), and others can only be assessed by consumer panels
(e.g., flavor).
Quality must be controlled (enforced) and is thus a management function.
The current approach is a system of integrated or total quality
management. It involves integration in three directions:

1. Throughout the product chain, i.e., from the farm to the consumer. It
may even have to start before the farm, for instance in the design of
milking machines or in the specifications for concentrates fed to the cows.

2. For the product in the widest sense, including service. This would
involve the way in which the product reaches the consumer and the
information given about the product.

3. Throughout the organization, i.e., at all hierarchical levels and in all

departments.
Milk may contain several types of pathogenic bacteria. Because their
presence is largely determined by chance, and because a single bacterial
cell can in principle be dangerous (because some pathogens can grow in
milk), safety cannot be assured by selecting and inspecting samples.

Other measures must be taken, such as:

1. Treating the raw milk in such a way 2. Prevention of recontamination of

that all the pathogenic bacteria that intermediates and end product. This
can be present and harmful are requires strictly enforced hygienic
killed. measures and packaging.

3. Transformation of the material into a product in which pathogens cannot

grow; a good example is fermented milk. Preferably, any pathogens present
will die off.
QUALITY ASSURANCE OF RAW MILK

Assurance of the hygienic quality poses

more problems, mainly because mistakes
leading to poor quality can readily be made
and because sampling and analysis of every
lot delivered would often be too expensive.

The success of a quality assurance system would further depend on a

number of conditions:
1. The farmer should be knowledgeable about hazards and remedies,
and should be committed to delivering high-quality milk. This means
that training and information should be provided.

2. The farmer should be financially rewarded for producing milk of

good hygienic quality, and penalized for delivering milk that is
adulterated or potentially harmful.

3. If the farmer encounters difficulties in producing high quality milk,

help should be provided in establishing the cause and in finding
remedies.
4. If the farmer suspects that his milk accidentally has become of poor
quality, e.g., because the cooling system has failed, he should have
the option of reporting this to the dairy.
MILK STORAGE AND TRANSPORT

Milk storage and transport operations are aimed at having good-quality milk
available where and when needed for processing. The milk should not be
contaminated by microorganisms, chemicals, water, or any other
substance.

Simple and effective cleaning of

all the equipment involved should
be possible
 Transport and storage refer to raw milk as well as to intermediate
products.
Milk collection and reception

Milk may be supplied to the dairy in milk cans

(churns) or by a tanker after it has been
coldstored at the farm (tank milk).

During transport, milk in cans usually has Bacterial growth often occurs
a temperature of >10°C, but may vary between milking and the milk’s
between 0 and 40°C according to the arrival at the dairy
climate.
The extent of bacterial growth depends primarily on the level of hygiene
during milking, the temperature, and the storage period.

Poilage of the milk is mainly by mesophilic bacteria and usually involves

lactic acid fermentation; however, heavy contamination with polluted water
(mainly pseudomonads) may cause a nonsouring spoilage.

0-40°C <6 °C

On reception at the dairy plant, milk is cooled to < 6°C, which helps to more
or less stabilize its bacteriological quality for at most 2 d.
Collected milk ought to be routinely examined to identify poor-quality
milk supplies. A simple, rapid examination of the sensory properties
would include odor, appearance, and temperature.

In addition to this simple inspection, the milk can be tested at the

laboratory of the dairy for the presence of antibiotics, as well as its
freezingpoint depression, acidity, and bacterial count.

Milk can be contaminated during transport if the tanker was inadequately

cleaned. Milk tankers can contaminate milk with high numbers of
psychrotrophs. This means that rigorous cleaning of the tanker and
routine monitoring are essential. Furthermore, the temperature of the
milk during transport must be kept low, i.e., < 5 °C.
A small quantity of milk of somewhat inferior quality will have little
effect due to its dilution in the large storage tanks of the dairy.
However, milk supplies of poor quality should preferentially be
eliminated.
 MILK STORAGE

Some variation is inevitable, but mixing many deliveries in large storage

tanks, containing, for example, 300,000 kg of milk, results in only a small
variation among lots of milk within 1 or 2 d.

BACTERIAL GROWTH

The duration for which raw milk can be kept in storage tanks is mainly
determined by the growth of psychrotrophs. Prior to processing, bacterial
numbers greater than 5 ⋅105 ml−1 in milk imply a risk that psychrotrophs
have produced heat-stable enzymes, i.e., bacterial lipases and
proteinases, which may impair the quality of the final product.
Usually, the quality of milk is examined after it arrives at the dairy. It
is advisable to test the milk again just before processing. Standards
for milk quality before processing are given in Table 6.2.
 ENZYME ACTIVITY
Lipase activity is usually the main problem in fresh milk, although other milk
enzymes, e.g., proteases and phosphatases, also cause changes.
Therefore, extensive temperature fluctuations, in the range of 5 to 30°C, and
damage to fat globules should be avoided.

CHEMICAL CHANGES

Exposure to light should be avoided because it results in off-flavors.

Contamination with rinsing water (causes dilution), disinfectants (causes
oxidation), and especially with Cu (catalyzes lipid oxidation) should be
avoided.
 PHYSICAL CHANGES

The following are the main physical changes that can occur during
storage:

1. Raw or thermalized milk stored at low temperature creams rapidly. Formation

of a cream layer can be avoided by regular stirring of the milk, e.g., stirring for a
few minutes every hour.

2. Damage to fat globules is mainly caused by air incorporation and by

temperature fluctuations that allow some fat to melt and crystallize. These
events can lead to increased lipolysis, to disruption of fat globules if the fat is
liquid, and to clumping of fat globules if the fat is partly solid (10 to 30°C).
3. At low temperatures, part of the casein, primarily β-casein, dissolves
from the micelles to end up in the serum. This dissolution is a slow
process and reaches equilibrium after approximately 24 h. The
dissolution of some casein increases the viscosity of the plasma by
approximately 10% and reduces the rennetability of the milk.

STANDARDIZING

Standardization of the composition of a milk product is needed because it is

legally required or because manufacturers set a standard for their product. It
mostly concerns the fat content, often also the dry-matter content (or the
degree of concentration), sometimes the protein content, or still another
component.
From an economic point of view, continuous standardization is
desirable; turbidity or density measurements can be applied for fat
content and density or refractive index for dry-matter content.

After the standardization, performed tentatively or by means of

continuous determination, the desirable content will have to be
checked. This implies that it may be necessary to make an adjustment
by the addition of cream, skim milk, water, etc.The added compound
should have been treated (especially with respect to heating) in a way
similar to that of the product itself.