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.

Transport of milk

Historically, the milking and the processing took place in the same place: on a dairy farm. Later, cream was separated from the milk by machine, on the farm, and the cream was transported to a factory for buttermaking. The skim milk was fed to pigs. This allowed for the hight cost of transport, primitive trucks and poor quality of roads. Only farms close to factories could afford to take whole milk to them, which was essential for cheesemaking in industrial quantities. The development of refrigeration and road transport, in the late 1950s, has meant that most farmers milk their cows and only temporarily store the milk in large refrigerated tanks, whence it is later transported by truck to central processing facilities.

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