The cow is a revered animal in throughout much of India. It represents Mother Earth — a source of goodness, who nourishes all creatures with its milk. And dairy production in India is indeed big business.
The south Asian nation leads the global market for the production of milk and milk-based products, with an estimated production in excess of 200 million metric tons in 2022. A majority of the country’s farmers rely heavily on the revenue brought in by the sales of dairy products; in fact, roughly one third of the income in rural Indian households comes from the direct employment of about 70 million farmers in the dairy industry.
Large milk producers, such as the dairy co-op Anand Milk Union Limited, or AMUL, located in the state of Gujarat on India’s western coast, source their milk from substantial numbers of these small famers. Some suppliers to AMUL may have as few as one or two cows, and do their milking by hand; others may have several dozen and use milking machines. Adding to the complexity, the AMUL co-op deals with raw materials from multiple animal sources, including traditional cow milk, buffalo milk, or milk from cross-breed hybrid cattle.
There are seasonal differences in the milk as well. The basic constitution of the source milk itself can vary wildly in terms of protein content, lactose content, or sugar content. Were the cows fed hay during the dry season? Is the milk from buffalo that grazed freely during flood season? What if one farmer brings in several liters of thin, low-protein milk, while another delivers half the amount but with much higher milkfat content? Imagine trying to figure out how to pay all the milk suppliers fairly, while also ensuring that the end product is consistent. Also, any analyses will need to be performed quickly, since the product is perishable and needs to be moved along for processing with minimal delay.
FT-NIR and dairy quality control
This is where FT-NIR spectroscopy can provide a real boost to India’s dairy production. Traditional chemical analysis methods are not viable. Each milk type goes for 17 or 18 types of milk adulteration tests, with a roughly 30-second window to analyze all the parameters. To do each of these tests by traditional chemical methods would take five minutes or so. That could lead to a backlog for testing and create a bottleneck leading to possibly millions of liters of spoiled milk.
At the initial acquisition of the product, the milk is analyzed for its milkfat and solids-not-fat (SNF) content by FT-NIR spectrophotometry. This is the first step in dairy quality control, and it also determines the payout to the individual milk supplier. (Compensation is based on the content of the milk provided, not just the volume delivered.) The various milks from numerous small suppliers are collected in tanks at local collecting centers before it is transported to a larger liquid milk handling plant. At the processing plant, the milk is bactofuged to remove bacterial spores, separated, clarified, and then possibly processed further depending on the co-op’s product needs. And then the real food preparation process begins.
Milk powder production is aided by FT-NIR
Big diary producers like AMUL make a wide variety of dairy and dairy-adjacent products, from liquid milk to whey protein to chocolate products, cheeses, fermented products like yoghurt of kefir, UHT (ultra-high temperature pasteurized milk with extended shelf stability), or milk powder. Milk powder is a major commodity: it is a key component of infant formula, confectionery treats, and much more. At one AMUL plant in Gujarat, they produce about 250 tons of milk powder every day, in several different categories: skim milk powder, whole milk powder, whey powder, infant milk substitute, and dairy whiteners. Each of these final products must meet strict guidelines for quality.
Analysis of these milk powder products is most often performed by an FT-NIR analyzer. The instrument is able to analyze all constituent level details of the milk, whether it be moisture, fat, or SNF like proteins, carbohydrates, and minerals.
FT-NIR based technologies are also used for powder evaluation. The analyzer can be customized to assess sugar, protein, lactose, and more. All these details can be evaluated in one go, in a few seconds.
The rapid response time of the FT-NIR analyzer provides another key advantage: the ability to make real-time adjustments to product preparations, and thus compensate for initial natural variances. For example, many milk powders are formulations. Additional supplements might be added to the milk post-drying to achieve a target formulation—and those formulations are tightly controlled, with consistency of the product being of paramount importance. Sometimes additional ingredients like sugar or whey protein get added, to formulate a different kind of product which uses milk powder as a base material only. In such conditions, the quick response of an FT-NIR analyzer can alert the manufacturer if something looks wrong before a batch falls out of specifications. A quality control manager can know in real time that some aspect of the formula might not be up to standards on a particular mix. Is it accepted or rejected? What needs to be changed? FT-NIR can provide real-time answers.
When strategically incorporated, FT-NIR can significantly boost production and quality control. The technology allows the production facility to manage operations very quickly in terms of laboratory operations, with just a few people. If you go back to 10 or 15 years, numerous adulterations were common, or at least more prevalent, throughout the milk and milk powder production process. With the advancement of the FT-NIR technologies, producers are able to scrutinize multiple factors well in time to correct an issue and keep quality under control. As a result, India, land of the sacred cow, continues to be a worldwide leader in dairy production.
