Technological Advances of Milk’s Journey from Dairy to Your Home

Posted by Anco Equipment on February 25th, 2020

It is sometimes difficult to comprehend how the carton of milk, a commodity that is used in most households around the world, reaches the home or the process it has undergone to reach its present avatar. From the days when cows were milked at home to when bottles of fresh milk being brought to the doorstep daily by the milkman to  today’s mind boggling range of milk and milk products available in cartons/bottles in the local supermarkets. The story of milk has come a long way, especially the ability to store milk for long periods of time, and to make it safe from dangerous bacteria like Salmonella, Escherichia coli, etc.

Pasteurization

This was done through the process of pasteurization, a technique invented by the famous French scientist, Louis Pasteur in the nineteenth century. It was his discovery that by heating milk to a high temperature and then quickly cooling it before bottling had the ability to keep the milk fresh for a longer period of time. Today’s huge dairies in the United States of America and around the world, process milk and other dairy products at a scale unimaginable to people in the last century, and the quantities of milk which need to be treated cannot be done in the small batches, because of the huge demand. A modern milk pasteurization machine has tanks that have capacities ranging from 50 gallons to 3000 gallons, and are made of food-grade stainless steel and has the capability to heat and cool the milk to the temperatures set by the dairy.

Processing Machinery

The modern dairy equipment currently in use, include batch pasteurizers of various types and sizes; these are often described as milk pasteurization machines, cook tanks,  vat pasteurizers, etc.

The basic norm is that all of these vessels are essentially manufactured from food-quality grade stainless steel, which is connected to a heating system or boiler as well as a chilling unit. This unit can heat and cool any kind of dairy, beverage or other liquid products and has found its optimum use as dairy processing machinery, but the main users are the dairy industry for the pasteurization of milk and milk products. Milk processing units of the big dairies play a very important part in the milk industry; they collect, treat and process milk into various forms, like milk, butter, cream, cheese, yoghurt, and milk based drinks.

Strict Protocol

Milk is heated by steam or by hot water boiler systems and is then cooled and chilled. The reason for this strict program is that if not treated properly, milk can spoil with various harmful bacteria, which could result in severe food poisoning or in extreme cases, death. Currently, there are many highly advanced devices which are available to dairy producers to help them in the manufacture of milk and other milk-based products. This technology is advancing at a very fast rate, and has made its mark in dairy processing machinery in a very important way. The manual labour of old has been completely replaced through these technological advances, and they start from the actual milking process to the finished product on the shelves of the local supermarket.

The journey that fresh milk makes from the cow to the safe and sterile finished product is something that is mind boggling in its complexity.