Combat Microbial Spoilage: Ensuring Dairy Quality Assurance with QualiTru
| | | | | |

Combat Microbial Spoilage: Ensuring Dairy Quality Assurance with QualiTru

ByClarence Johnson

The dairy industry faces the continuous challenge of maintaining the safety and quality of milk and its derivatives. Despite significant advancements in processing technologies, a 2018 paper in the Journal of Dairy Science reported that nearly half of all fluid milk products show evidence of post-pasteurization contamination with psychrotrophic or psychrotolerant spoilage organisms.1 This contamination primarily stems from…

Sterile or Aseptic? Understanding the Difference
| | | | |

Sterile or Aseptic? Understanding the Difference

ByClarence Johnson

Ensuring the quality and safety of dairy and food products is the number one priority of processors, explaining why questions surrounding sterile or aseptic frequently enter into the conversation, especially when discussing equipment cleanliness and sampling or testing techniques. While the words sterile and aseptic are often used interchangeably, they are not, in fact, interchangeable….

Economics of Quality Assurance in Dairy Processing
| | | | | |

Economics of Quality Assurance in Dairy Processing

ByClarence Johnson

A cost-benefit analysis of a well-conceived and carefully sustained quality assurance program for dairy processing is hard to pin down. Every month, the costs associated with maintaining quality assurance jump off the profit and loss statement, but the benefits are much harder to decipher. Still, when evaluating the economics of quality assurance over the long…

Hygienic Sampling Practices Are Vital to Protecting Dairy Product Quality and Safety
| | | | |

Hygienic Sampling Practices Are Vital to Protecting Dairy Product Quality and Safety

ByClarence Johnson

Milk collected from the udders of healthy cows is almost sterile but microbial contaminants are introduced during milking, storage, processing, and distribution. Cleaning and sanitation failures allow contaminating organisms to accumulate in dairy processing equipment, potentially leading to the development of biofilms that can become a significant and persistent source of contamination. On the farm…

Prevalence of Cold-tolerant Spore-forming Bacteria in the Milk Supply 
| | | | |

Prevalence of Cold-tolerant Spore-forming Bacteria in the Milk Supply 

ByClarence Johnson

The shelf life of pasteurized fluid milk is challenged by bacterial contamination that enters the finished milk supply through two portals: a) contamination by Gram-negative psychrotrophic bacteria during processing after pasteurization; and b) contamination by Gram-positive spore-forming bacteria that enter primarily through the raw milk supply. In today’s processing environment, where post-pasteurization contamination is largely…