The Dairy Seminar is scheduled for 6 March 2012. It enables artisan cheese makers to exchange experiences, network and learn more about the art and business of cheesemaking.

Program:

09.00 Farmhouse cheese maker visit at Simon Weaver Cotswold Organic Dairy Upper Slaughter, Gloucestershire

12.00 The Ludlow Food Centre. Viewing of the dairy and shop, lunch and seminar.

Speakers:

Tom Hunt, Marketing Manager Ludlow Food Centre, will explain the thoughts behind this unique enterprise.

Wolfgang Pachschwöll of Hundsbichler GmbH will talk about Natural Rennet. Natural rennet is regaining acceptance. Hear why and what it can mean for you.

Michelle Mills-Porter of Ethos Development will talk about how small businesses, like Artisan Cheese makers, can harness the internet and develop their business.

Booking :

• Cost for the day, including lunch and VAT.: £35 pp.
  
• Click here for further information.

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Small scale processing of milk into cheese and other dairy products is expensive and a solution developed in Germany may offer an option for small scale manufacturers. The mobile dairy pictured below might offer a less expensive option for processing small volumes of milk.

 

There are some eight mobile dairies in trailers driving around Germany. They are shared between a numbers of cheesemakers who use the mobile dairies to process their milk. When this has been done the dairy moves on to another small scale processor.

A typical dairy supplied by Jongia contains:

- 2 x 650 L cheese vats complete with a planet agitator, with curd cutting knives.

- CIP

- drainage table/pre-press

- Sink

- 35 kW gas boiler for cheese vat heating and warm water supply.

An internal view of a typical mobile dairy is shown below.

These mobile dairies are marketed at two main groups:

· entrepreneurs who can serve a number of farmers e.g. goat milk producers who have insufficient milk volume to justify an individual investment in a dairy. Farmers accumulate sufficient milk for processing over a 2-3  day period  and pay the entrepreneur for the service.

· farmer cooperatives. Here individual farmers invest in a mobile dairy and share the facilities with others.

There are some obvious biosecurity issues but these seem to have been resolved in Germany. The concept is an interesting one and may also have application in farm diversification projects where the mobile equipment could be used to teach product manufacture as an initial stage in the development of on farm milk processing business.

 

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Applications are invited for a Veterinary adviser for the Central Region Milk Producer's Association (CREMPA), in Lilongwe, Malawi for 24 months and a Dairy Production Manager, Individual Entrepreneur (IE) Muminov, Soughd, Northern Tajikistan for 8 months.

Information is available on the Dairy Science and Food Technology jobs page.

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The Austrian dairy  Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen. working in cooperation with the European dairy-equipment manufacturer ASTA-eismann has developed an innovative, unique and low cost approach to teaching cheesemaking, called , “table cheese making”.

Cheese making equipment is expensive and learning the skills of cheesemaking takes practice and can be expensive. Hence this small scale, low cost manufacturing approach has potential to enable the teaching of cheesemaking and its associated science and technology to be taught inexpensively in a wide range of locations globally.

Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen has purchased a 50 litre vat (figure 1) which can be used as a milk holding tank or as a cheese vat and a number of 4 litre cheese vats. Both vats come with a range of stirring and cutting equipment; cheese moulds are also supplied.

A close up of the vat is given in figure 2.

Each small vat is mounted on a table (figure 3) and is typically managed by two people; about 4 x 100 grams of soft cheese are produced from each vat.

The dairy has been operating the kaese schulke since  April 2011.  Costs for a basic 4-hour class, are shown below:

Adult pupils/students Old age pensioners- and school groups Sonnenalm-customers

€ 29 € 25 € 25 € 10.

The Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen web site has a range of pictures showing school pupils making cheese. A selection of images, shown below has been downloaded from the site.

Image downloaded from the Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen web site.

Image downloaded from the Sonnenalm Bäuerlicher Milchhof e.Gen web site.

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As mentioned in a forum post there is some scientific debate about the nutritional benefits of reducing salt in food. Recent work* with rats by Professor Micah Leshem, a psychologist at the University of Haifa, Israel suggests that salt (sodium chloride) may have an anti-anxiety (anxiogenic) effect and has speculated on why people like salty foods. While rats are obviously a long way from people this research will be interesting from several respects, not just  to people suffering from anxiety and depression, regarding any application (if any) to humans.

Professor Leshem's paper can be accessed On Line.

*Leshem, M. (2011) Low dietary sodium is anxiogenic in rats. Physiology and Behavior, 103, 453-458.

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Jongia UK Ltd are arranging trips to cheesemakers in the UK and Germany later this year.

 

Germany
3-5 October Bavaria/Austria
11 October Berlin
18+19 October Westphalia

UK
25 October Midlands
26 October South England

 

For further information please contact jaap@jongiauk.com.

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Small scale ice cream or gelato manufacturers sometimes use whole milk powder (WMP) and cream  in their ice cream mixes. In Vietnam and other Asian countries ice cream is frequently made from whole milk powder and cream. To the best of my knowledge there has been no information published on how to calculate the weights of cream and whole milk powder required to make ice cream mixes to a product specification.

A tutorial explaining the calculations required to determine the weight of  cream and WMP in ice cream mixes was added on the 20th May 2011.

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Following a request for advice on how to cite software downloaded from a website received many months ago there has now been some 15 or so requests.  A new wizard was added on the 5th March 2011 to cite software downloaded from a website. It is not necessary to formally cite commonly used software e.g. Microsoft Word.

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The latest Harvard style citation wizard was added to the referencing application on the 6th February. The latest wizard enables OnLine reference notes to be cited correctly. It is available at www.dairyscience.info/harvard .

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Two wizards for citing UK government papers / circulars have been added to the Harvard Reference Generator. This bring the number of wizards to 45 at December 2010.

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The Ulster Farmers Union has Insurance and Agriculture Business Opportunities at  Senior Group Manager and Assistant Group Manager level in Northern Ireland.  More information is available at the UFU website.

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The EU are currently proposing to bring general and nutrition labelling together into a single regulation with the aim of simplifying and consolidating existing labelling legislation. The Regulation once agreed will be directly applicable in all Member States and replace existing legislation in this area across the EU.

Defra has responsibility for coordinating the UK’s input into the negotiations. Today the 8th December 2010, Defra published research entitled Developing a Framework for Assessing the Costs of Labelling Changes in the UK. This research which was undertaken by Campden BRI revealed that re-labelling costs were much higher than had been originally estimated, ranging from £1,500 to £9,750 per stock keeping unit.

This research which was not well supported by the industry in the UK (only a 12% response rate to a survey designed to obtain information on costs) is probably only indicative of actual costs. Nevertheless, introduction of harmonised labelling legislation is likely to incur significant costs and it is likely that there will be pressure from manufacturers for a significant phasing in period to mitigate costs.

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Four wizards to cover a wide range of working paper citations have been added to the Harvard reference generator. Working papers are pre-publication versions of evolving policy documents, economic proposals, consultations, academic articles, book chapters, or reviews. Note that the software requires the month of issue to be added. If you do not have the month, add one and remove before you paste the paper into your reference list.

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An International Scientific Conference on Probiotics and Prebiotics will take place during the 14th – 16th June 2011 in the university city of Kosice, Slovakia, in the DoubleTree Hilton Hotel.

IPC2011 is a scientific forum where academic and industrial scientists involved in research of all aspects of probiotics and prebiotics will meet. The key themes will be evidence-based benefits of the use of probiotics and prebiotics, health claim substantiation and new product development. The event will include a section on the development and use of probiotics and prebiotics in animals. 

 

Tel.: +421 904 837153
+421 41 4000123
Web: www.probiotic-conference.net
E-mail: info@probiotic-conference.net

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Wizards to enable the correct citing of a planning application and a book translated from a "foreign" language have been added to the Harvard Reference Generator.

 

These new wizards have also been added to the Harvard Reference List writer.

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George Lang a former Head of the Food Technology Division and Vice Principal of Loughry College died on the 13 August 2010.

 

Mr. Lang joined Loughry College in 1964 as Head of the Dairy Department; he had previously worked at the West of Scotland Agricultural College.  He was appointed Vice Principal of Loughry College in 1967, a position he held until his retirement in March 1986.

George Lang was an enthusiastic supporter of the Society of Dairy Technology and actively encouraged students to join the Society.

Mr. Lang’s contribution to food education and his service to the Society were recognized in 1987 when he was presented with a plaque: “For outstanding service to the Northern Ireland Section of the Society of Dairy Technology.”

George who was a much respected colleague leaves behind his wife Ailsa, daughter Marjorie and son Iain.

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A number of new ice cream mix calculators have been added to http://www.dairyscience.info/technology/180-excel-ice-cream.html .

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The deadline for applications for the  Laboratory Manager post with National Milk Laboratories has passed and the vacancy details have been archived.

 

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One of the calculators on the  Dairy Science and Food Technology website is a  lethal rate calculator for the determination of F values. This was validated using a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and following consultation with site users this is now available for download.

The spreadsheet converts temperature to lethal rate and plots lethal rate and temperature against time. The trapezoid rule is used to calculate the area under the curve and depending on the reference temperature chosen Fo or other F value can be calculated. A graph showing lethal rate and temperature against time is also plotted.

The download contains a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and a document in PDF form. The PDF file explains the basis of lethal rate calculation and also how to use Microsoft Excel to calculate the area under a curve using the trapezoid rule.

All the cell formulas are unlocked. The Terms and Conditions that apply to the Ice Cream Mix Spreadsheets also apply.

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Firstly apologies for not providing an update until now.

The site forum as many browsers will know  is currently being hosted at www.thesis-tutor.co.uk until it can be transferred to this server. The CGI or Perl based software will not run on this server.

The project has been complicated by the structure of the 'flat file database' system. That I am not a professional coder has not helped either.

I am currently finalising arrangements for a professional coder to complete the migration script and I intend to have the new forum with enhanced functionality available by the end of March.

To fund this project I have decided to make the Ice Cream mix calculator available on a subscription basis from Friday the 19th February and to enhance the functionality of the calculator by adding a facility to save and edit calculations. Users will be able to use the existing calculator for x times, x to be decided, and then they will be sent to the enhanced subscription only calculator.

I will provide an update on progress approximately every two weeks from now on.

Mike Mullan

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The objective in calculating ice cream mixes is to turn a formula e.g. 8% fat, 11.1% MSNF, 13% sweetener, 1% stabiliser / emulsifier into a recipe based on the selected ingredients and the mass or volume of mix required.  The recipe is then processed to obtain ice cream for distribution and sale.

The Dairy Science and Food technology website has a calculator that user linear programming to calculate the ingredients required for a particular recipe.

During the development of the calculator 11 Microsoft Excel spreadsheets that cover many of the ice-cream formulation challenges that commercial manufacturers face were developed. These are now available for downloading.

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Commercial cheese correctly manufactured with pasteurised milk and lactic starter cultures has a well deserved reputation as a nutritious and safe product. However, under certain circumstances cheese may support the growth of food poisoning bacteria or serve as a ‘vehicle’ for their transmission.

Listeria monocytogenes is particularly significant since it can grow / survive for long periods in cheese and cause serious illness leading to death; the death rate arising from listeriosis can exceed 30%. It can also induce abortion in humans and its ability to cross the placenta, and access the brain makes it a particularly dangerous pathogen.

An article providing an introduction to the binary and ordinal logistic regression models developed by Bolton and Frank (1999) for predicting the probability of L. monocytogenes growing in cheese after 42 days storage at 10°C was added to the Dairy Science and Food Technology website on the 20th December 2009. Access article.

 

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The Comite´ des Industries des Mayonnaises et Sauces Condimentaires de la Communaute´ Economique Europeenne (CIMSCEE) has provided guidance on a safety value, Σs, for a microbiologically safe product preserved using acetic acid. An article on the CIMSCEE model and a calculator was added to the Dairy Science and Food Technology site on the 5 December 2009. The article also provides an introduction to the acid-protective effects sodium chloride and / or sucrose can have on Escherichia coli. In addition to providing Σs values the calculator also compares the pH and total acetic concentration of the product against current recommendations for microbiologically safe products.


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"Talkin'about Food Forum", or TAFF, is an interesting project initiated by Giulio De Simoni and a group of fellow Italian food technologists. The overall purpose of the forum to publicise food science and technology and to work to solve problems in food manufacture.

The forum has sections on food chemistry, food engineering, food legislation, food marketing, food microbiology, food packaging, food safety and quality, food technology, information for students and information on ‘food’ events.

The forum owners are currently translating the site content into English and Chinese.

Discussions are currently taking place between TAFF and Dairy Science and Food Technology regarding how both websites can work together and provide an enhanced user experience. The TAFF owners have very significant expertise in meat science and technology and I would encourage all users of this website to visit TAFF and explore the articles and responses to queries. The Italian content can be ‘translated’ using free tools from Google and AltaVista- not quite the same translation you would get from a human but usually good enough to understand the main points.

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On the 24th September 2009 I had the opportunity to talk to the “Graduate Quality Course on Health, Hygiene and Technology on milk and milk-product chain production” at the Universita' Degli Studo Di Napoli, Federico 11 in Italy.

The opportunity to discuss issues in cheese science and technology with postgraduate students from a range of disciplines and companies in Italy was a very pleasant and interesting experience.

My thanks to Professor Nicoletta Murru for the invitation and to Dr. Giuseppe Aprea (Virology and Serology Unit, Animal Health Department, Experimental Zooprophilactic Institute of Southern Italy) who acted as interpreter.

One of the topics discussed was the use of HACCP in milk production at farm level. I look forward to helping to organise a study tour to Northern Ireland to look at HACCP use on farm and the food processing facilities at the Loughry campus of the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise.

Professor Nicoletta Murru and Dr Giuseppe Aprea with students from the “Graduate Quality Course on Health, Hygiene and Technology on milk and milk-product chain production” at the Universita' Degli Studo Di Napoli, Federico 11 Italy.

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The University of Guelph's annual Ice Cream Technology Course will be held on December 7-11, 2009. This course has been offered since 1914.

The Lead Instructor is  Dr. Doug Goff. Doug Goff is a Professor in the Department of Food Science, University of Guelph.  Professor Goff is one of the authors of the well known book on ice cream* written with R.T. Marshall and R.W. Hartnel.  

For more information visit http://www.foodsci.uoguelph.ca/dairyedu/iccourse.html .

Professor Goff will also be the lead instructor on an International Ice Cream Technology Course at University College Cork, Ireland over the 16-18th February, 2010.

For further information on the course in Ireland contact Ms Mary McCarthy-Buckley or Ms Deirdre Crone .

 

*Marshall, R. T., Goff, H. D. and Hartel, R. W. (2003). Ice Cream, 6th Edn. New York: Kluwer Academic.

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For many years the Dairy Science and Food Technology site forum used software called Simpleforum. While this was very easy to use and administer there were a number of issues that I was unable to resolve and there was little support for the software.

I intend to transfer as many of the posts as I can to a new faster and more user-friendly forum. This may take some time so in the meantime the forum can be accessed here .

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Site  Email server is now fully operational.

Several 'bugs' in the template have been fixed but the site may not render correctly in Internet Explorer 6. I will try to fix but this will take some time. The site renders well using Firefox, Safari and IE7 and IE8. Safari is particularly fast.

 

 

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The redesign of the Dairy Science and Food Technology site and the move to the 'free' open source Joomla CMS has been challenging. Joomla has run only slowly on the current server server and there have also been some application problems also.  From the 8th September the site will move to a new hosting company, Web Whiz. Hopefully users will experience a much faster site with all the applications working properly.

The move to Web Whiz which has been relatively painless, due to the excellent technical support- thanks Bruce, should be complete by the 9th September. I do not expect too many problems but the site forum -a CGI-powered script- will not work. It has been disabled and will be replaced in time by a Web Whiz professional forum. It will take me some time to transfer the posts across!!

If you have an urgent query Email me at webmaster at this domain. Do put a heading on your Email that relates to the areas covered by the site otherwise the SPAM filters may divert the Email elsewhere!

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The content of the Dairy Science and Food Technology site  was transferred to the CMS on the 4th July. Since the CMS uses PHP I have to use 'popups' to use the existing ASP powered calculators. Over time I will convert the ASP scripts to PHP; however I have to learn PHP first. Interesting the CMS which is optimised for Linux works fairly well on a commercial Windows 2003 server. I would appreciate an Email to webmaster at this site or forum posts listing broken links and other site problems/errors.

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Hannah Gilman from VSO has advised of a volunteering position for a 6-month placement as a Cheese and Dairy Processing Adviser with The Women’s Association ZamZam, Tajikistan. I will post the details on the site's job page.

 

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The Dairy Science and Food Technology site has grown to 100 + pages and has become difficult to manage. As a consequence  I have decided to transfer the content to an open-source content management system. This work is almost complete and the redesigned site will go live shortly. Regretfully all the URLs will change so unless I can negotiate a custom-error page with Names.co.uk-an essential requirement of a hosting package- you will be redirected to an anonymous and useless error page. If this happens please go to www.dairyscience.info and you will be able to find the renamed page. The site will probably be down for a few hours and I suspect that there will be quite a few internal broken links. If you note any please let me know and I will fix.

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Companies seeking to purchase commercial quantities of lactoferrin for inclusion in antimicrobial products are advised to consider the specific activity of the protein, freedom from toxins and cost in addition to other purchase specifications. Specific activity is the ratio of the antimicrobial effect to protein concentration.

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Probiotic Symposium -Probiotics and Gastro-intestinal Health

Chair:            Prof. Alojz Bomba

Date:             12th  June 2009

Place:            Zilina, Slovakia

Webpage:     www.foodandfunction.com

The symposium will focus on the role of probiotics in the maintenance of intestinal health and prevention of intestinal diseases. Further to its scientific content, the symposium is a networking event; a unique opportunity to meet all those who influenced the past, influence the present and most importantly will enable the future of probiotics in gastro-intestinal health management. Initiation of cross-boarder co-operations between scientists and institutions will be also facilitated during the symposium.

Expert scientists and researchers will present their findings and visions about the role of probiotics in the maintenance of gastro-intestinal health  within the following subject areas:

• Models to study intestinal interactions
• Modulation of the  intestinal micro-flora
• Biomarkers of  probiotic efficacy in the GIT
• Mucosal health and integrity
• Diarrhoe prevention
• Stimulation of the intestinal immune system
• Inflammatory bowel disease and Crohn´s disease
• Mechanisms of action
• Symbiotics
• Novel strains and approaches

Abstract submission deadline March 31, 2009.

 

The symposium will be organized in a series of thematically ordered sessions. Contributions will be strictly evaluated by the Scientific Committee in order to ensure high level of scientific and/or practical quality and relevance. All contributions accepted will be assigned to a specific session. All contributions accepted and presented at the conference will be included with the official Conference Proceedings and published in a peer-reviewed journal. 

 

For more information, please, visit the conference website at: www.foodandfunction.com .

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Two requests for new wizards have been received, one for press releases and the other for PDF files. A press release wizard was added on the 21 February 2009. It can be accessed through the wizards page.

I have had quite a few requests for a wizard for PDF files. It is usually easy to reference most PDF files e.g. most will have an author or authors and a title. Date and other information can usually be obtained fairly easily e.g. Google Scholar or a search facility such as PubMed . Note if you cannot correctly attribute a PDF article that is critical to supporting a view or stance you are taking you should not use the PDF!

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VSO have a vacancy for a Dairy Quality Control Advisor at Lilongwe Dairy, Malawi.

Lilongwe Dairy provides a living for many smallholder dairy farmers; however the income it generates is greatly affected by the poor quality of its output. The post holder will be tasked with improving the quality of the raw milk entering the dairy from the producer groups. Want more information?

 

January 2009

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I have added a tutorial and a series of unique calculators that enable the thermal destruction of Mycobacterium avium subsp. paratuberculosis (MAP) to be modeled during the HTST treatment of milk. The tutorial and the calculators can easily be adapted to deal with other organisms.

 

In developing the calculators I needed a script that would convert numbers to the correct normalised scientific notation. This may be useful to students and others and can be accessed here.  

 

There have been a number of interesting forum postings. These include lactose intolerance and pack collapse due to the use of low-strength packaging.

 

Finally season's greetings to all users of the Dairy Science and Food Technology website  and my best wishes for 2009 to you all.

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A new review article, "Whey, a carrier of probiotics against diarrhoea", by Nupur Goyal and D.N. Gandhi has been added to the Dairy Science and Food Technology website. The authors argue that while interest in probiotics for treatment of diarrhoea has increased in recent years, probiotic treatment is unlikely to provide a solution on its own. Whey has the potential for developing probiotic formulations against pathogenic organisms and for replenishing nutrients lost during episodes of diarrhoea.

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The latest forum posting concerns a a mineral precipitate in  well water that is causing problems in cheese manufacture. The precipitate appears to contain  Fe/Mn  and appears as a black spec in finished products.  The poster would appreciate advice from anyone who has encountered a problem like this. The post is at http://www.dairyscience.info/simpleforum.cgi?fid=01&topic_id=1224088490 .

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An article on the use of whey as a carrier of probiotics against diarrhea has been accepted for publication. The article has been produced by Dr Nupur Goyal and Dr D.N. Gandhi and will be available shortly.

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Following E-mail requests to provide a list of refereed citations or references to quality scientific literature covering definitions, prebiotics and synbiotics, the classification, isolation, enumeration of probiotic microorganisms; clinical trials including their effect on human fertility and reproductive health, gut development and function, topical gut infections e.g. Clostridium difficile; health of infants, people with AIDS, and the elderly; and distant site infection a ‘downloadable’ list has been prepared. The reference list has been added to the article on probiotics.

The list of references is in rich text format (RTF) and can be viewed and edited using most word processing software on PCs using Microsoft, Mac and Linux operating systems.

The references have been prepared in a Harvard-style format e.g.
Antonio, M.A., Rabe, L.K. and Hillier, S.L. (2005). Colonization of the rectum by Lactobacillus species and decreased risk of bacterial vaginosis. Journal of Infectious Diseases. 192(3):394-8.

The reference list at the 31 August 2008 is at version 1.1 and when printed on to A4 paper will give eleven to 13 (11-13) pages of single spaced citations, depending on how your word processing programme is configured, containing some 132 individual references.

The list should be of interest to students writing essays on probiotics, undergraduate and postgraduate students commencing research on probiotics, staff in food companies working on the development and/or marketing of probiotics, journalists, food writers, parents and the general public wanting to access current developments e.g. what well publicised probiotic was found to potentially aggravate allergic reactions in mice and what are the implications for babies?

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An additional reference wizard which gives correctly formatted  Harvard-style citations for  YouTube videos has been added on the 30th August, 2008.

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The Harvard-style reference Wizard has been updated to format several additional reference types including legal citations and television broadcasts.

A ‘portal type-page’ has been added to facilitate user access to all the calculators and interactive models on the Dairy Science and Food Technology website. Additional molarity and random number calculators have been added.

Following Email and forum discussions on cracks/slits in cheese I have made some minor updates to the article on early gas production in Cheddar cheese to make it a little more relevant to wider textural problems caused by unwanted gas production problems. There is also an interesting post in the forum on problems caused by Str. thermophilus in cheese.

Some minor updates to the article on ‘probiotics’ have been made. There is a recent post on the safety of feeding babies probiotics. Interestingly parental concerns regarding feeding yoghurt containing probiotics seem to be increasing and the relatively recent work concerning Lactobacillus casei and mice which found that the strain tested may promote allergic reactions suggests caution in giving at least some strains of L. casei to very young children.

There have been recent forum postings on copper in cheese, ice cream manufacture and a Chinese invention for tea making. Contributions to these and other posts would be welcomed.

The review article on whey as a growth medium for probiotics, that may be useful in treating diarrhoea, is in the final stages of review and should appear on the site in late September/early October.

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The article on gas production in cheese has been updated. The text has been edited and some additional photographs added.

A review article on whey as a growth medium for probiotics, that may be useful in treating diarrhoea, has been received and is being reviewed.

There have been a number of interesting posts on the forum including controlling cracks/slits in cheese, increasing the yield of Holstein cows, effect of using milk from animals with mastitis on the quality of dairy products, and there is still some interest in benzene in soft drinks.

The ice cream mix calculator is being used extensively and it would be appreciated if "heavy users" would let me know how useful it is. The calculator uses linear programming to calculate the ingredients required to manufacture an ice cream mix to specification.

I have further developed the Harvard-style reference writer. The literature citations now go to database and they can be printed as a word document in which they are listed alphabetically and by date order. 

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I am writing this on Wednesday the 15th May. The site has been down for the last 3/4 days. This was due to technical errors by Namesco, the UK company that hosts this website. Regrettably my hosting experience with Namesco has not been good although they do have some good people; thank you Richard for helping to fix the most recent problems. The forum statistics have also been lost.


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The articles on cheese starters and probiotics have been updated. In particular additional information on enterococci has been added including the biochemical key developed by by Manero and Blanch (1999).

Some students find referencing Emails, Mintel reports, blogs, E-discussion lists, E-journals let alone traditional journals difficult. A Harvard-type reference wizard has been developed and should be of help to anyone wishing to reference major literature sources correctly.

Using computer software to calculate how readable written text is, is somewhat controversial for scientific writing.  The site now contains a readability calculator that with judicious use may be useful to those writing essays, assignments and dissertations.

The discussion forum has had a number of interesting posts including the significance (and enumeration) of enterococci in whey protein concentrates.

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This article by Dr Cecilia Hegarty from the Northern Ireland Centre for Entrepreneurship (NICENT), provides students with an overview of why employers are increasingly attempting to recruit graduates with entrepreneurial skills. It also explores why economies within the European Union need more people with imagination and drive to think and act in an entrepreneurial manner to create exciting opportunities for themselves and others.

 

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Current vacancy. Dairy scientist added 20 November, 2007.

Kate Yuxl from the ChinaClick2 Group is seeking to recruit an experienced dairy scientist. Details of the vaccancy are given in the job vaccancies section.

 

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Following discussions concerning the geographical location of the producers of Montebore cheese the article on this Italian cheese has been updated by Professor Zeppa.

14 October, 2007

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An article on the science and technology of wine making has been added to the Dairy Science and Food Technology web site. In the article, author Professor Giuseppe Zeppa from the Department of Exploitation and Protection of the Agricultural and Forestry Resources, Turin University, Italy explores the history of grape growing and wine making, discusses red and white wine production, explains how speciality wines are produced and offers an insight into how particular wines compliment particular foods.

 

La scienza e la tecnologia della vinificazione

 

Nel Mondo vi è un elevato numero di bevande ottenute dalla fermentazione alcolica di liquidi zuccherini quali succhi vegetali, miele, latte ecc., ma le più importanti per diffusione e quantità prodotte sono senza dubbio il vino, la birra ed il sidro. Lo scopo di questo breve articolo è quello di riassumere la storia e la tecnologia produttiva di una di queste bevande, ottenuta dalla fermentazione dell’uva, il vino. Conosciuto già dagli Egizi, il vino ha accompagnato con alterne vicende l’uomo in tutta la sua storia, divenendo nella cultura cristiana simbolo, con il pane, dell’unione stessa con Dio. Prodotto in quasi tutto il modo anche in virtù dell’ampio areale di coltivazione dell’uva, il vino si presenta al consumatore in varie tipologie (rosso, bianco, rosato, dolce, secco, spumante ecc.) volte ad interpretare al meglio le caratteristiche della materia prima ed a soddisfare le esigenze del consumatore stesso. Alla base di queste diverse tipologie di prodotti vi sono altrettante tecnologie venutesi a definire nei secoli ed i cui aspetti fondamentali vengono descritti in queste pagine con la speranza di stimolare il lettore ad approfondirne lo studio sui numerosi testi specialistici attualmente disponibili.

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The latest forum posting concerns Casu Marzu. Over the July period I received several Emails enquiring about an Italian ‘worm or maggot’ cheese called Casu Marzu. Apparently there had been an article in a UK newspaper and questioners wanted to know if it was a late April-fools joke! The forum posting concludes that Casu Marzu is real but that its production is illegal at present. It is one of the world's many interesting cheeses.

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In this article, Claire Towler from Chr. Hansen explains the implications of the new European Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims made on food by manufacturers. Advice on how manufacturers can make a probiotic Article 13.1a claim on their products containing BB-12® and/or LA-5® to  the Food Standards Agency or the Food Safety Authority of Ireland  is given.  Claire Towler explains the importance of making a claim  and advises that manufacturers who do not submit claims may find it difficult to continue to use Article 13.1a type claims during the transition period.

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A new European regulation, Regulation no 1924/2006, has been issued to help protect the public from false or misleading nutritional and health claims.  The regulation requires that nutrition and health claims be authorised and added to the European Community (EC) list of permitted claims. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) is responsible for compiling the UK national list and is currently inviting food businesses to submit eligible claims for inclusion.

The FSA website states that they will close this list on 21 September 2007.

The EC register of approved claims should be available by January 2010.

The FSA has provided a template  to enable businesses to make claims and to date, the 13^th January, 2008; nutritional claims have been submitted for calcium, folate and iron.  The current situation regarding claims is available here. I understand that claims for two probiotic bacteria are likely to be submitted shortly.

The regulation will also result in the establishment of nutrient profiles for foods. Once these are established, health claims where any nutrient does not meet the criteria set by the nutrient profile for that food will not be permitted. It will be interesting to see how this works out for traditional foods high in fat for example, many cheeses, which provide major nutrients such as calcium.

Providing there is good scientific evidence it would appear to be relatively easy to make claims and businesses should benefit from reviewing the claims made to date.

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SHOP - Ireland's annual retail, food and drink event.

SHOP offers an exhibition for the Retail, Food and Drink Industry, while benefiting from the support of two of Ireland's largest and most successful food trade events - IFEX (Ireland's International Food, Drink & Hospitality Exhibition) and Forecourt (Ireland's Convenience, Retail and Forecourt Equipment Exhibition). SHOP, takes place at the RDS Simmonscourt, Dublin from September 2nd - 4th 2007.

The SHOP (formerly IFEX) cheese awards is now firmly established as the major event in Ireland for the cheese industry.

The appeal of the awards is the competition between the small cottage based producers, large commercial creameries and importers and the acknowledgement of the role each plays in developing trade on the island of Ireland.

Shop also delivers a buying audience from specialist delicatessen outlets to multiple retailers and from hoteliers to restaurateurs.

The competition provides a showcase for visitors and professionals to view and sample first hand the tremendous variety of cheeses now available in Ireland.

Want more information? Then download a cheese brochure or visit the Shop website.

Added 28 June 2007

 

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An article on thermal processing is being developed.  This includes a calculator for determining the equivalent antimicrobial effect of the total heat, F value, received by spores or vegative cells of microorganisms compared with a reference temperature.  While the default value for reference temperature is 121.1° C, this can be varied.  The Z-value has been set at 10 ° C but can also be varied.

 

 The calculator converts temperature readings to lethal rates, plots the lethal rates against temperature, and determines F values for a heat process.  The area under the curve is determined using the Trapezoid rule and the calculator is capable of giving very accurate F determinations for most thermal processes. The application can also undertake F calculations on uploaded comma separated text (CSV) files containing temperature and time readings.

 

 It will be some weeks before this article is publicly available but can be accessed for testing and feedback purposes http://www.dairyscience.info/index.php/calculators-models/134-f-value-thermal-process.html. The calculator can also be used to look at the equivalency of pasteurisation type heat treatments e.g sous vide processes

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Dear Colleague

It is indeed a matter of great pleasure to inform you that the II Announcement for the International Conference on Traditional Dairy Foods 2007 (ICTDF 2007) has been released. The conference will be organized jointly by Dairy Technology Society of India and National Dairy Research Institute during November 14-17, 2007 at Karnal (India). The event will provide a forum for deliberating theoretical and practical issues that are critical for the manufacture, quality assurance and marketing of traditional dairy foods. The Conference will deal with novel technological aspects such as mechanized manufacture, marketing needs, emerging concepts and enhancement of functional attributes of traditional dairy foods without losing focus on their enormous cultural importance.

The Organizing Committee of the ICTDF 2007 takes great pleasure in inviting you to this conference. This mega event is expected to bring and knit together dairy and food scientists, academicians, industrialists, policy makers, farmers and students from all over the world to participate in the deliberations. The conference spread over four days will also have other concurrent activities. A large number of internationally renowned Dairy and Food Scientists will be delivering key note addresses, plenary lectures and technical oral presentations. Dairy Expo will host a large number of national and international companies involved in the manufacture of food processing equipment and machinery, analytical tools for dairy and food products as also for traditional Indian milk delicacies. Besides the oral presentations, there will also be a poster session to promote young and budding dairy researchers. Special events for career opportunities are also planned for the benefit of students. Conference details can be had from the society website www.dairysociety.org. Please forward this message to those working in the areas of dairy and food sciences

I look forward to your participation in this conference

Thanking you

Dr. R. R. B. Singh

Secretary

Dairy Technology Society of India

Division of Dairy Technology

National Dairy Research Institute

Karnal - 132 001 (Haryana), India

Tel: 91-184-2259250 (O)

Tel: 91-184-2272887 (R)

Fax: 91-184-2250042

Cell: +91-9416468437

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How do you investigate and solve commercial yield problems? This article provides a simple framework for analysing milk composition, casein:fat ratio, actual yield, theoretical yield and milk component retention. Users can use a unique interactive table to enter and analyse real data or vary the given data to investigate the effects of a range of factors on yield.

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An article on ice cream was added on the 8th May, 2007. This will be developed over the coming months. The article provides access to a range of calculators that should prove useful to anyone interested in ice cream including some useful references.  One of the calculators enables users to input final mix composition and to select a range of ingredients required to give a 100 kg batch.  Others enable  ideal MSNF value for ice cream, MSNF in unwashed butter, and MSNF in cream to be calculated. The calculators can be accessed under Site Calculators and Models.

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I have been receiving Emails regarding the above and thought this might be a topic that others might wish to comment on.

Carnosine (beta-alanyl-L-histidine) is a dipeptide of the amino acids beta-alanine and histidine and is present at high concentration in muscle and brain tissue.

In vitro studies have shown carnosine to be a potent antioxidant and an inhibitor of glycation. The latter is apparently involved in cataract formation.

Does anyone have information of the incidence of cataracts in meat eaters? Is it possible that meat consumption, meat contains carnosine, may inhibit cataract formation?

While carnosine may be the latest anti ageing agent it comes with a heath warning! Dr. E.K. Schandl at http://2line.com/CARNOSINEwarning.html is very concerned about this material and has issued a strongly-worded warning.

Anyone with information on cataract incidence and diet or wants to comment please   contribute to the forum posting on carnosine.

7 May 2007

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I have included a calculator for predicting the theoretical yield of Cheddar cheese using milk composition only and a modified form of the Van Slyke yield equation. More later.

An article on wine manufacture by Professor Zeppa has been accepted and will be available shortly.

4 May 2007 

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Mosaic Search is recruiting a dairy technologist as Head of Product Development at a new dairy in Pakistan. The person appointed will develop and build a recipe bank of new milk products.  For more information please see the Jobs section.

 24 April, 2007

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Cheese Maker/Dairy R&D

M.K. and Associates, Inc. wish to recruit a talented cheese maker to join a rapidly growing company. The cheese maker must have knowledge of dairy processes.  The successful candidate will work as part of a team to create and expand upon an existing product line of natural cheeses and cultured dairy products. This is an opportunity to introduce new cheeses on a national level. Salary $45K. Must be a US resident or citizen.

Please contact Diane@mkandassoc.com for additional information or call (724) 285-7474.

I will try to obtain additional information.  Please see the jobs section for more information

15 April 2007

 

 

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There have been several postings concerning the use of ash in cheese manufacture. The latest response has been received from Professor Zeppa.

15 April 2007

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The article on how to standardise milk for cheese manufacture using the Pearson Square calculator has been updated.

03 April 2007

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The calculator for determining the quantities of ingredients required to prepare ice cream mixes is still being developed. Thanks for the feedback so far. I would still welcome feedback from potential users before making the calculator generally available. If you are interested in testing the application please Email me at the site including 'Ice Cream Calculator' in the title.

The forum has received numerous posting over the last few weeks. Postings have included Chinese cheese, Q-fever, Kefir, a yogurt from China,  and MSNF concentration in cream. Two posters in particular have been very active, Milkman and Childream; both have their own websites that are worth visiting.

I have received a surprising number of Emails to my webmaster address on ice cream related matters.  Note most Emails to this address are deleted automatically by the site's anti spam software so if you do not use the forum please make sure that the title of your Email is self explanatory. 

25 March 2007

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I am developing a calculator for determining the quantities of a wide range of ingredients that might be used to meet user-designated ice-cream mix compositions.

If you would be interested in testing the calculator please send me an Email to webmaster at dairyscience.info and I will Email you a link to the test page. The application should be ready for public testing by mid March.

Please include Ice-cream mix calculator in the title of the Email.

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Several articles suggested by external contributors have been agreed and will be published on the Dairy Science and Food Technology website in 2007.

An article on wine making which includes a section on quality appraisal is currently at an advanced stage. This will be complimented by an article on Irish whiskey manufacture. Following this Irish theme I am trying to source an article on Ulster breads. Northern Ireland is well known for its soda, wheaten and potato bread and there is now a good export market for these breads particularly to the US.

Listeria monocytogenes is an important pathogen. An article on the significance of listeria in food, their detection and enumeration is currently being prepared.

High pressure technology is increasingly being used in the food industry particularly to produce high-value-added products. While this area is particularly well developed in Japan, there have been exciting developments in Europe and New Zealand in particular. An article on the effects of high pressure on microorganisms will be available towards the middle of 2007.

 

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Congratulations to Dr. Giuseppe Aprea who received his PhD at the Universita' Degli Studo Di Napoli, Federico 11 on Monday the 15^th January 2007. I was particularly pleased to be a member of the Commision responsible for examing Guiseppe and the other doctoral candidates.

The author pictured with Professor M. L. Cortesi, Professor N. Murru and Dr G. Aprea at the University of Naples 

 

Dr Aprea worked with the author and colleagues at Loughry to study fermentation problems with Mozzarella cheese produced using buffalo milk in Southern Italy. The cheeses were manufactured using natural whey or artisanal cultures.

 

The research involved the isolation and identification of lactic acid bacteria from the starters and the determination of their sensitivity to bacteriophage.  The work identified that many of the lactic acid bacteria, particularly lactobacilli, present in the whey starters contained inclusion bodies comprised of polyphosphate. This work has been published. Two unusual phages for Lactobacillus brevis, the first reported for this organism were also identified.

 

Giuseppe Aprea working with Professor Ger Fitzgerald at University College Cork has characterised the genome of both phages and determined their sensitivity to high pressure and temperature.

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A calculator to determine the theoretical yield and process efficiency in Cottage cheese manufacture has been added. Using the solids-not-fat, protein or preferably casein concentration in the cheese milk an estimate of theoretical yield can be obtained. This can be compared with the actual yield to obtain values for cheesemaking efficiency.

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The latest posting concerns how to predict the theoretical yield of Cottage cheese.

The site forum has been updated from SimpleForum 3.3 to the professional version. The latter enables forum posts to be viewed without having to register.  It also enables  simpler and faster registration for posting and a range of other features e.g. personal messaging, posting attachments; these have still to be enabled. One downside of the upgrade is that the original statistics have been lost. On the positive side posters, providing they have enabled the feature in their profile, will receive an Email each time a response to their topic has been posted.

Finally peace and happiness to all users of this website in 2007.

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An article on 'Milk protein derived bioactive peptides' by Emily Haque and Dr. Rattan Chand from the National Dairy Research Institute in India has been added to the Dairy Science and Food Technology website.

This article reviews recent research that has shown that milk proteins can yield bioactive peptides with opioid, mineral binding, cytomodulatory, antihypertensive, immunostimulating, antimicrobial and antioxidative activity in the human body.

The authors review the properties of bioactive peptides, explain that bioactive peptides are encrypted in milk proteins and are only released by enzymatic hydrolysis in vivo during gastrointestinal digestion, food processing or by microbial enzymes in fermented products.

Mention is made of the  significant research  being undertaken on the health effects of bioactive peptides. The naturally formed bioactive peptides in fermented dairy products, such as yoghurt, sour milk and cheese are discussed e.g. antihypertensive peptides have been identified in fermented milks, whey and ripened cheese. Some of these peptides have been commercialised.

The authors conclude with their perspectives on the future of bioactive peptides and suggest that  "Bioactive peptides have the potential to be used in the formulation of health-enhancing nutraceuticals, and as potent drugs with well defined pharmacological effects".

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An article on how to calculate the energy density of food has been added. The purpose of this article is to discuss how to calculate the energy density or energy content of foods. A calculator is also included to calculate energy density using the the Atwater factors.

16 October 2006

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Students studying dairy science, food science, nutrition and food technology should have at least an appreciation of the macro aspects of food production on the farm.

Farming in Europe and in North America is challenging for many farm families at present. Farm incomes are lower than many farmers need to sustain and develop their businesses and the costs of meeting environmental legislation are increasing. All of this combined with the considerable purchasing power of the food retailers who tend to drive down farm prices requires  farmers to have excellent business management skills.

What are the business management challenges for farmers?  In a challenging but positive article Ian McCluggage discusses 'Dairy farming in a new environment.'

In his article Ian mentions benchmarking. More information on Ian's work in this area can be found on the Northern Ireland Rural Portal. Further information on benchmarking is also available under the Focus Farm programme. In this innovative DARD-led programme some 80 farmers throughout Northern Ireland share their business expertise through a mentoring programme. Many of these farmers use benchmarking.

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Many people find writing papers, reports, and theses difficult. From the 26 August 2006 users of the Dairy Science and Food Technology website have free access to  a simple tool (the Thesis Tutor) that may help authors structure their writing better.

Ideally the software should be used in conjunction with a tutor or research supervisor but it can be used as a self help tool.

The Thesis Tutor comprises two sections, a ‘whiteboard’ where you can list your ideas concerning the content of your report and a content planner arranged in table format.

This application took many months to develop and is still being ‘fine-tuned’. It will eventually be relocated to a dedicated thesis support site where users will have access to tutors. In the meantime users of the Dairy Science and Food Technology website are free to use this application. To restrict commercial use registration is required and will enable free use of the application for 30 days. After this time you will encounter a ‘nag screen’ at logon. 

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The article on the science of modified atmosphere packaging has been updated to include additional information on non-dairy foods. I have also included some advice on how to cite this and other articles. The article and other articles on packaging can be viewed here. Thanks to James Atherton for sharing a Javascript used on his Teaching and Learning site.

Finally after many months an article on the use of starter cell concentrates has been added. This material had been written quite a few years ago and I was disappointed to learn that facilities for innoculating bulk starter vessels with cell concentrate have not improved much. No wonder we still have phage problems.

 

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A paper on the 'Biotherapeutic properties of probiotic yeast Saccharomyces species in fermented dairy foods' by Kalpana Dixit and D.N.Gandhi, Dairy Microbiology Division, National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal-132001, INDIA has been added to the Dairy Science and Food Technology site.

 

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The production of mature cheese is expensive and involves management of several risks. There is increasing interest in using models to predict grade or to reject those cheeses that are likely to develop faults on storage.

An article on the use of the Lawrence model to predict the grade value of Cheddar cheese has been added.

The article also provides access to a calculator where users can input actual cheese data and use the Lawrence model to predict the cheese grade.

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There are several very good cheese 'Blogs'.  Curdnerds.com is a cheese 'Blog' created by Jamie Forrest that has been mentioned in Time Out New York. Jamie's site deals with a wide range of topics related to cheese, all written in an informed, enthusiastic and interesting manner. Well worth a visit!

 

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