Dairy Processing Industry And The Adoption Of New Technology

Dairy processing industry is concerned with the raising, producing, processing, and fabricating dairy products which can either be used by the final consumers or by food processing unit for further production. Moreover, the dairy processing industry occupies an important place in the food sector which embraces the production of milk, its preparation for sale and the manufacturing of other dairy products like cheese, yogurt, etc. Dairy industry depends on milk processing which is a raw material for any dairy product.

Objectives of dairy development

Dairy development has two main objectives that are to increase the total milk supply on commercial basis and diversifying agricultural structure by developing dairy as a supplementary which increases income. Dairy processing not only provides nutritional importance, but also provides employment to thousands of people. Moreover, milk processing is one of the few commodities which give the producer a large share of what the consumer pays for it.

Apart from its nutritional importance, milk processing gives a complete description of the processing, production, and manufacturing stages of dairy products from the receipt of raw materials to the packaging of the dairy products including the food quality aspects. Besides, it also deals with the distribution, storage, and transportation of dairy products.

Technology in dairy processing

Nowadays, consumers demand highest quality foods which are fresh, tasty, as well as nutritious. These demands have created considerable interest in the development of the new dairy and food processing techniques which is, the non-thermal techniques that include high hydro-static pressure used to deactivate microorganisms. Besides, it offers the dairy industry numerous applications to produce microbial safe milk with improved characteristics.

High pressure processing of milk and dairy products

Milk processing at high pressure offers unique advantage for consumers as well as for the dairy industry which can help destroy micro-organisms without causing significant changes to the nutritional attributes of the processed foods. However, the high-pressure treatment of food is usually carried out in the high range of about 300-1000 MPA at room temperature or a little higher. 

Further, there are some major advantages of high pressure for milk processing that include:

1. Elimination or avoiding thermal degradation of food components.
2. High retention of flavor, color, and nutritional value.
3. Energy efficient
4. Reduction in the chemical additives

For more, read here: Trends and Challenges in the Food Processing Industry