Dive Brief:
- Raw cow’s milk shipped by tanker truck for processing demonstrates "amazing bacterial diversity" that varies by season, according to a recent study published in mBio, the journal of the American Society of Microbiology.
- Researchers used gene sequencing to analyze the raw milk, a technology becoming increasingly common for food safety testing.
- Raw milk's bacterial diversity can influence shelf life, sensory qualities and safety of fluid milk and fermented dairy products like cheese and yogurt.
Dive Insight:
Milk collected in the spring was the most diverse in terms of bacterial communities, though that includes certain pathogens, researchers found. The occurrence of foodborne illnesses peaks in the summer due in part to bacteria growing faster in warmer weather, according to the USDA.
The presence of bacteria in food and beverage isn't necessarily a negative for manufacturers, especially as more consumers embrace probiotics and better-for-you gut bacteria. "Healthy" bacteria is likely one of the driving factors of raw milk's popularity.
Another factor impacting the microbial quality of raw milk was the built environment in food processing plants. The exact nature of that impact remains unpredictable. But the safety of food production environments has become an even bigger focus for manufacturers and food safety regulators in the wake of FSMA regulations going into effect next month.
If dairy manufacturers can identify raw milk microbes and their abundance, they may be able to "develop new and more effective sanitation procedures and process controls to make sure the milk and resulting dairy foods are safe and of consistently high quality," Food Safety News reported. That would be critical to the industry, for which food safety has been an ongoing issue.