Dairy Products

Dairy products are the kind of food that is at the base of the human consumption as they constitute an important source of essential nutrients. Cow’s milk is the most widely used, but it is common practice to derive from other types of milk, such as buffalo, sheep, goat, donkey, and horse.

They can be subdivided into:

•  Dairy products: such as all the products derived from fresh mile, by which ferments and salts are added. These can be yogurt, ricotta, cream, fresh cheeses, butter and mascarpone. They can be realized from skimmed milk to then diminish the amount of saturated fat, generally very high. They are products rich of calcium, vitamins, phosphorous and potassium.
• Cheese: such as all the product derived from milk in which the coagulation of casein takes place and to which rennet is added, to arrive at a compound called “curd”. The latter is processed according to different techniques depending on the type of cheese that you want to produce: may change the processing temperature or the acidity of the milk, the type of rennet, the cooking time or the temperature, the treatment to which the material is subjected (pressing, spinning, etc.). The maturation of the cheeses is different in the modes and timing. The result of these different techniques of processing are the differences between cheeses.

The production process variate and multiple themselves according to the desired result, but two common macro-phases are identifiable to the production of all dairy product and cheeses:

• Milk production: this phase comprehends the management of animals, of the farming, the milking and milk’s delivery.
• Transformation: all the processing of fresh milk, from the receiving of the raw material to the process of it, until the packaging and the distribution of the final product.

In the case of cheeses, it is possible to identify some common phases of the productive process:

• Warming from whole milk to skimmed;
• Ferments adding (eventually);
• Coagulation of milk with rennet;
• Coagulation rupture;
• Eventual cooking of the curds for hard cheese;
• Extraction of the curds and forming;
• Eventual compression of the forms;
•  Salting;
• Maturation.

At global level, during 2020 the demand for dairy products is increased of the 2%, even with the issues linked to Covid-19.

To push the world-wide trade, it has been mainly the supported answer from South-East Asia and China, that it has driven the locomotive with a +23,4% of the imports between December 2020 and February 2021.

The sale of fresh cheeses is increased of the 17,5%.

The weak points and the challenges for this supply chain are represented by the production costs of the raw material, the milk, and, especially, the needs of developing a more sustainable production model. Nowadays, the supply chain of dairy products, is the one with major impact in terms of emission of Greenhouse Gases.