Everything about industrial dairy ingredients

Ingredients with many and varied properties

Dairy ingredients own nutritional properties (they contain a high concentration of essential nutrients, most of the time transformed to ease their assimilation by the organism) as well as physical properties (among others stabilising, emulsifying, texturing, and whitening functions). Currently the majority of dairy ingredients is exploited as dehydrated products.

New processes used in manufacturing dairy ingredients for food industry now favour the technological quality of raw material, in particular:

• Quality of microbiological properties, secured by quality analyses done all along the product life cycle (from production to final use, including transformation) as well as by upstream controls.

• Quality of physicochemical properties, ensured by the development of new techniques (including membrane technologies) that may act more precisely on milk composition.

Functional and nutritional properties of dairy ingredients are indeed affected by their manufacturing processes (splitting, drying…). Several watch-points are as a result determined to ensure an optimal final result:

• Microbiological safety
• Organoleptic quality
• Technological process control
• Increase of the real added value of the product

There are various generations of dairy ingredients

The designation “dairy ingredients” gathers a multitude of ingredients, mainly protein, that were discovered, developed and improved as technological progresses are made in dairy industry and as needs evolve in food industry.

Firstly, there are ingredients called traditional such as liquid or fermented milks, butter, cream and cheese.

Then the first generation appeared that includes dairy ingredients called basic:

• Milk powder
• Whey powder
• Buttermilk powder …

The second generation  was developed thanks to progresses made on membrane technologies for milk splitting (for instance ultrafiltration and microfiltration). “Milk cracking” has allowed obtention of high added value protein fractions from milk or whey:

• Caseins,
• Caseinates,
• Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC),
• Milk Protein Concentrate (MPC) …

Accomplished progresses regarding milk cracking gave birth to the third generation of dairy ingredients by enabling the production of individual proteins:

• Alpha-lactalbumin,
• Beta-lactoglobulin,
• Lactoferrin,
• Lactoperoxidase,
• Lysozyme,
• Phospholipids,
• Milk calcium concentrate ...

Click here to discover the industrial dairy ingredients offered by FIT.