Right here’s How Milk Will get From the Cow to Your Grocery store

It’s simple to seize a jug of milk out of your native grocery retailer with out occupied with the way it acquired there. However latest information in regards to the U.S. Division of Agriculture testing the nationwide milk provide for hen flu has raised loads of questions on how milk is extracted, processed, and dealt with earlier than attending to shoppers.  

Dairy business consultants stress that it is a tightly regulated course of. “Milk might be essentially the most examined product available on the market — this can be very protected,” says Jeff Semler, principal agent with College of Maryland Extension. Martin Wiedmann, DVM, PhD, veterinarian, meals scientist, and professor at Cornell College Faculty of Agriculture and Life Sciences, agrees. “It’s probably the most extremely regulated meals within the U.S.,” he says.

With that in thoughts, Meals & Wine tapped six dairy consultants, together with an infectious illness doctor, to interrupt down precisely how milk will get from the cow to retailer cabinets. 

Milk is first collected from cows utilizing a vacuum system

Whereas the method of milking cows was performed by hand, trendy dairy farms will sometimes use milking machines. “The entire course of is finished within the milking parlor, the place milking operators observe correct milking procedures to make sure harvesting milk of top quality,” says Izabella Maria Michelon Toledo, PhD, extension assistant scientist at College of Florida Institute of Meals and Agricultural Sciences. 

The precise procedures range barely by dairy farm, says Kelly Nichols, PhD, assistant professor on the College of California Davis Division of Animal Science. In some farms, a farm employee will clear the cows’ udders earlier than attaching a milking machine. “Alternatively, some dairy farms use automated milking methods which make use of robotic arms and sensors to wash the udder and place the milking machine,” Nichols says. “In these methods, cows can go to the milking system on their very own schedule.”

The milking machine is designed to be comfy for the cow, Nichols says. “It makes use of a sequence of suction and pulsations to stimulate let-down of milk from the udder,” she says. 

Cows are normally milked two to 3 occasions a day and, as soon as they’re within the milk parlor, the gathering course of takes about 10 minutes, Toledo says. 

“The milk flows immediately from the cows to a refrigerated holding tank to take care of freshness and high quality,” says Efrain Valenzuela, dairy agricultural literacy director from Dairy Council of California.

Milk briefly sits in a holding tank earlier than it’s collected

Most farmers promote their milk to a processor, says Steven Beckman, MS, supervisor of the Davis Dairy Plant at South Dakota State College. “For these farms, cooled milk within the bulk holding tank on the farm is transferred to a milk truck by a licensed and inspected milk hauler, sometimes inside 24 hours of milk assortment,” he says. Relying on how busy a dairy farm is, the milk assortment truck could go to as soon as or a number of occasions a day. 

A pattern of milk is taken to be examined for micro organism, antibiotics, and different substances that aren’t allowed within the human meals provide, Wiedmann says. The milk can also be examined once more as soon as it arrives on the plant, Valenzuela says. 

“The milk just isn’t unloaded on the plant till that take a look at comes again adverse,” Semler says. If the take a look at is optimistic for contaminants, “the farmer simply purchased himself a load of milk,” Semler says, noting that the milk can be returned to the farm. 

If the take a look at is adverse (that means, it doesn’t have contaminants), the milk can be transferred into the processing facility’s uncooked milk holding tanks, Beckman says. “Everything of this course of is very regulated by the USDA and Meals and Drug Administration Grade A Pasteurized Milk Ordinance, and is usually overseen domestically by state departments of agriculture,” Beckman says. 

Pasteurization comes subsequent 

Pasteurization is a course of that entails heating meals merchandise (on this case, milk) to a selected temperature for a sure period of time to kill off micro organism and prolong the shelf lifetime of the product. 

“Pasteurization doesn’t affect the dietary properties of milk however does guarantee milk security by killing micro organism,” Nichols says. “That is just like cooking meat earlier than consuming it.” Even when hen flu have been in industrial milk, pasteurization would inactivate the virus, says infectious illness professional Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar on the Johns Hopkins Heart for Well being Safety. 

The milk is separated after that 

The milk can then be separated relying on which dairy merchandise it is going to be used to create, together with fluid milk, cheese, and yogurt.

For fluid milk, the cream is normally eliminated after which added again in at a sure focus, relying on whether or not the milk can be skim, 1%, 2%, or full-fat, Wiedmann says. From there, the milk can be homogenized, which is the method of forcing milk below excessive strain by a valve that breaks up fats globules to a dimension that they won’t stick collectively, making a clean liquid, Nichols says. “That is performed for sensible functions to stop cream from rising to the highest of milk,” she explains, noting that homogenization doesn’t have an effect on the vitamin or high quality of the product. Some milk will then be fortified with additional nutritional vitamins, minerals, protein, or flavors, Nichols says.

From there, the milk is bottled

There are extra high quality management exams performed earlier than the milk is bottled, Nichols says. It’s then bottled and shipped to retailers in refrigerated vehicles. The entire timeline from cow to the shop is brief. “It normally takes about two days from the farm to the shelf,” Toledo says. 

Wiedmann stresses that processed milk is tightly regulated and protected. “It’s most likely one of many most secure merchandise within the U.S. that you may have,” he says.