Dairy

A dairy is a facility for the extraction and processing of animal milk (mostly from cows, sometimes from buffaloes, sheep or goats) for human consumption. The end product of such processes are known as dairy products. In Australia a dairy is also a shop or company that sells dairy products. In New Zealand a dairy is a shop selling convenience-food products. A dairy farm produces milk and a dairy factory processes it. Over the years, Dairy has become a multibillion-dollar industry.

Industrial production

Cream and butter

Today, industrially, milk is separated by large machines in bulk. The cream is processed and reduced variously to produce consumer products with varying names depending on the thickness of the cream and its suitability for uses in the kitchen in various countries. Some cream is dried and powdered, some is condensed (by evaporation) and mixed with varying amounts of sugar and canned. Most cream from New Zealand and Australian factories is made into butter. This is done by churning the cream until the fat globules coagulate and form a monolithic mass. The butter mass is washed and, sometimes, salted to improve keeping qualities. The residual buttermilk goes on to further processing. The butter is packaged (25 to 50 kg boxes) and chilled for storage and sale. At a later stage these packages are broken down into home-consumption sized packs. Butter sells for about US$2200 a tonne on the international market.

Related Topics:
Evaporation - Butter - Churn - Buttermilk - Tonne

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Skim milk

The product left after the cream is removed is called skim, or skimmed milk. Reacting skim milk with rennet or with an acid makes casein curds from the milk solids in skim milk, with whey as a residual. In some countries a portion of cream is returned to the skim milk to make low fat milk for human consumption. By varying the amount of cream returned producers can make a variety of low-fat milks to suit their local market. Other products, such as calcium and flavouring, are also added to appeal to consumers.

Related Topics:
Skim - Skimmed - Rennet - Casein - Curds - Whey - Low fat

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Casein

Casein is the predominant phosphoprotein found in fresh milk. It has a very wide wide range of uses from being a filler for human foods, such as in ice cream, to the manufacture of products such as fabric, glues, and plastics.

Related Topics:
Casein - Phosphoprotein - Ice cream - Fabric - Glue - Plastic

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Cheese

Cheese is another product made from milk. Whole milk is reacted to form curds that can be compressed, processed and stored to form cheese. In countries where milk is allowed to be processed without pasteurisation a wide range of cheeses can be made using the bacteria naturally in the milk. In most other countries the range of cheeses is smaller and the use of artificial cheese curing is greater. Whey is also the byproduct of this process.

Related Topics:
Cheese - Pasteurisation

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Whey

In earlier times whey was considered to be a waste product and it was, mostly, fed to pigs as a convenient means of disposal. Beginning about 1950, and mostly since about 1980, lactose and many other products, mainly food additives, are made from both casein and cheese whey.

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Yogurt

Yogurt (or yoghurt) making is a process similar to cheese making, only the process is arrested before the curd becomes very hard.

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Milk powders

Milk is also processed by various drying processes into powders. Whole milk and skim-milk powders for human and animal consumption and buttermilk (the residue from butter-making) powder is used for animal food. The main difference between production of powders for human or for animal consumption is in the protection of the process and the product from contamination. Many people in the world today drink milk reconstituted from powdered milk because milk is about 88% water and it is much cheaper to transport the dried product. Dried milk powder is worth about US$2300 a tonne on the international market.

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