Hygiene in milk Production, Processing and Distribution

Abstract

The idea of publishing this monograph originated in an Inter-Agency Working Group on Milk and Milk Products, a body set up by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which meets periodically to co-ordinate the efforts of the three organizations in the field of milk hygiene. The importance of ilk as a food needs no emphasis. Most people are aware of the enormous wastage to which, because of its high perishability, milk is subject unless it is early and effectively processed; and also that milk provides an admirable culture medium for bacteria, and can and does serve as a vehicle for these and other disease-producing micro-organisms. For both economic and health reasons, therefore, it is essential that the animals giving milk should be protected from disease; that milk and milk products should be handled, transported, processed, and packaged in the most hygienic conditions possible; and that at every stage of their journey from producer to consumer such products should be subjected to the most vigilant control to prevent the entry of harmful organisms, destroy those already present, and guard against early deterioration. Modern practice in relation to these requirements is described in this monograph. But conditions vary in different countries. Milk production and distribution present an entirely different picture in the less developed countries and in the highly developed countries. Many of the former are in hot climates where the milk deteriorates rapidly unless properly processed; where the conditions in which the animals are kept and milked may be exceedingly unhygienic; where animal diseases communicable to man are common; where dairies are few and trained staff in short supply; and where the distribution of milk may be uncontrolled, haphazard, and wasteful. At the other extreme are countries where production, processing, and distribution are carried out efficiently and even the climatic conditions are favourable. An attempted is made in the monograph to describe milk hygiene practice not only as it is but as it could and should be in the countries of different climatic and technological conditions. A chapter is devoted to milk other than cows’ milk, which assumes great importance in some of the less developed countries. It is hoped that his monograph will give a clear picture of the various ways and means of ensuring that the milk and milk products reaching the consumer are both harmless and wholesome. Some of the chapter deal with the advancing fringe of the subject, with processes that are not yet widely used or firmly established; a full description of these processes, it is felt, will be welcome, since it will enable those imperfectly acquainted with them to make up their minds about them.