Volume 75, Issue 1 (February 2022 issue) of the International Journal of Dairy Technology introduced a new feature, the Editor’s Choice Article. This has been selected as a paper whose content has global potential for cost-effective adoption or significantly adds to the science and technology of milk processing.

The February article selected is ‘Development of global fatty acid models and possible applications’ by Daniel Schwarz, Marie Rosenberg Bak and Per Waaben Hansen. This represents the result of a collaboration between FOSS Analytical A/S and the Faculty of Science, Copenhagen University.

The authors have used advancements in Fourier transform infrared (FTIR), which is a commonly applied technology in milk analysis, to enable high-throughput determination of milk fatty acid (FA) profiles. The reviewers, in particular, noted that ‘FTIR is a research tool to look for new relationships between the FAs in milk with milk production and processing characteristics’ and that it is ‘a relatively rapid and cost-effective way of creating additional insights that could be used to optimise dairy chains from farm to consumer when added to existing data and knowledge’.

The authors conclude that the prediction of FA using FTIR technology opens up the possibility to routinely test raw milk for FA profiles in a cost-effective way and utilise the resulting data for different purposes including the production of dairy products with enhanced concentrations of desired FA, improving and optimising dairy farm management and economics.

The article can be freely accessed for 30 days at https://doi.org/10.1111/1471-0307.12820.