Abstract
Dairy quality strategies start at the beginning of a raw milk supply chain at farm level, but it is the obligation of the manufacturer at a dairy processing plant to ensure quality is upheld from intake to finished product. This is achieved by implementing robust quality systems, measured through sampling plans and analytical test methods. Influences on product quality and composition, and analytical test results within a dairy plant are multi-factorial including: seasonality; the quality of incoming milk and herd health; the level of skilled laboratory technicians; the level of production and the availability of equipment; and finally milk harvesting, transportation and handling. These factors, along with customer and regulatory requirements will determine the level and type of analytical testing required. In the dairy industry, manufacturers oftentimes pay little attention to the need for optimising analytical test strategies or improving laboratory operations, if it is not broken why fix it? The focus of this qualitative research was to differentiate the core current analytical test methods in use at three dairy manufacturing plants for the production of raw milk, skim milk and cream and skim milk powder (SMP). The main objective being to inform and educate each producer on best practice methods. Results displayed similarities across testing categories but demonstrated a range of traditional testing methods in the microbiological analysis compared to advanced instrumentation use in the chemical and compositional analytical category. The dairy industry needs to adapt to a modern, process focused quality system using industry 4.0 analytical processing regimes.
Highlights
Modern day dairy processing has seen considerable advancements in equipment and various techniques to develop product in the most effi cient and sustainable way possible with a large emphasis placed on reduced energy and waste (Welch & Mitchell, 2000; Sousa et al 2016; Poyatos-Racionero et al 2018)
The objective of this study was to compare and contrast the analyt ical test methods used by three dairy manufacturing plants across a twelve-month period
This study evaluated the chemical, compositional and microbiological analytical test methods associated with the processing of raw milk, skim milk and cream, and skim milk powder (SMP)
Summary
Modern day dairy processing has seen considerable advancements in equipment and various techniques to develop product in the most effi cient and sustainable way possible with a large emphasis placed on reduced energy and waste (Welch & Mitchell, 2000; Sousa et al 2016; Poyatos-Racionero et al 2018). To ensure high yield and exceptional quality (Trienekens & Zuurbier, 2008), quality systems in any food industry must be estab lished from raw materials right through to finished product (Aung & Chang, 2014), through optimised quality systems (Santos-Fernandez et al 2014). This is achieved through analytical testing and sampling strategies (Truchaud et al 1997) which are governed by legislative and regulatory guidelines and standards, and driven by customer requirements. Standard methods are determined by regulators to guide dairy processors in producing product to meet specific customer and legislative requirements (Burke, Southern, et al, 2018) (Burke, Zacharski, et al, 2018) and analytical tools to investigate foods are continually evolving to allow for more rapid, sensitive analysis (Ram aswamy et al 2019) (Zacharski et al 2016)
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