Milk Composition—manufacturing properties

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Over the last 20 years there have been significant changes in the pattern of milk utilization in the UK.For example, in 1960, only 27% of a total production of 9.7 billion 1 of milk was used in the manufacture of dairy products.In contrast, 15.2 billion 1 of milk were produced in 1982 and of this total 49% was utilized in the liquid market (Anon., 1982).The remaining 7.8 billion 1 of milk were converted into a comparatively narrow range of milk-based foods.The relative importance of various manufactured products is shown in Table I.There is a clear distinction between Scotland and England and Wales, for in Scotland cheese prductionprincipally of the Cheddar variety-is the most important manufacturing operation with smaller, but relatively equal, amounts of milk being converted to butter and to evaporated milk.However, in England and Wales butter production predominates with cheese manufacture assuming lesser importance.Comparatively little milk is processed to condensed milk.Notwithstanding these regional differences, throughout the UK a small but significant proportion of the milk supply is manufactured into fresh cream products.Because the ascendancy of the manufacturing sector of the UK dairy industry is recent, comparatively little attention has been paid to the relation between milk composition and either the efficiency of the manufacturing process or the quality of the end-product.Furthermore, it is difficult to translate results obtained abroad into a UK framework because of differences in breed of cow, lactational pattern and nutritional practice.In the UK, the nutrition of the cow is the major determinant of milk composition since, unlike the Irish Republic and New Zealand, the continuing policy of encouraging milk production in winter has resulted in a fairly even supply of milk throughout the year.The ratio, peak:trough production in the UK in 1982 was I '4: I eo.Table I .The relative importance of various manufactured dairy products (1981-82) (Anon., 1982) Percentage of total milk sdes converted into manufactured products Product Scotland England and Wales Butter 1 3 .1 2 5 .3 Cheese 20.9 1 5 .0 Condensed milk 11.2 2 . 2 Fresh cream 5.6 6.4 Whole milk powder <a.