Extension Services for Quality Milk Production
Proceedings of an International Workshop in conjunction with the East-West-Forum
of the Federal Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Forestry
and the "Window of German Animal Breeding" at the International Green Week
24-25 January, 1999

Session I

Mr Chairman,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Thank you very much for your kind invitation to speak to you here today. Due to his busy schedule, Federal Minister Mr Karl-Heinz Funke, who is currently President of the EU Council of Agriculture Ministers, has asked me to convey his warm greetings and best wishes for a successful outcome of this technical seminar that he considers very important.
In the interest of fair international competition, Federal Minister Mr Funke strongly supports to strive for global harmonisation of quality requirements and hygiene provisions not only for milk.
This is a particularly pressing matter with a view to the accession of European countries to the Community and the closer trade relations with the rest of Europe.

Please let me start with two short personal remarks.
First, I believe the reason why our hosts have chosen me to deliver the introductory paper is that I will in the near future be involved in one of the EU twinning projects in a candidate country and there try to address on site the problems associated with today's topic.
Second, in my presentation I will therefore often try to present the problems from the viewpoint of the applicant states. In doing this, I will use the terms milk quality and milk hygiene largely as synonyms as this is usually done on international level.
While these terms are not identical, their definitions are very closely related, so I hope you may forgive me a certain lack of precision.
Speaking to you as experts who I assume largely know the EU hygiene requirements for milk and milk products, I will spare myself the discussion of their numerous details.
As annex to my paper, which is available to you in English and German, you will find the major relevant provisions summarized in tables. They are taken from the German regulations resulting from the implementation of the EU Directives on milk hygiene.
Why has the Community adopted uniform quality and hygiene provisions for milk?
Due to their biochemical composition milk and products derived from milk constitute one of the most important components of human nutrition.
Unfortunately, these products are highly perishable.
When secreted from the healthy mammary gland, milk contains all components but only very few microorganisms and usually no residues or contaminants.
The fundamental goal of all efforts is thus to maintain this high natural quality as far as possible in the further course of marketing by careful treatment and good hygiene practices.
In consequence, this means that all appropriate measures to ensure the hygienic status of milk and to maintain its quality from stable to table assume particular importance.
When the European Hygiene Directive of 1992 and its amendment of 1994 were adopted, the following primary aspects were taken into account with a view to the internal market:

1. The overall quality and hygiene principal ensures that the consumer benefits from careful and hygienic production and treatment of the milk by farmers, manufacturers and retailers.
2. Full compliance with the EU Milk Hygiene Directives ensures a high level of health protection for the consumers.

It creates mutual trust among the Member States so that the border checks of milk products that used to be carried out, and often impeded intra-Community trade, are no longer necessary in the EU.
3. Furthermore, the Hygiene Directive helps to reduce distortions in competition caused by different national hygiene and quality rules in individual Member States of the Community.
4. Imports of milk and milk products from third countries into the Community must fulfil the same hygiene and quality requirements.

• compliance with the hygiene rules contributes essentially to the prevention of epizootic diseases,

• it enables the individual holding to make better use of the potential of lactating animals

• the use of processing capacities in sectors downstream to the farm is maximized.

• because they can make full use of the asymmetrically granted supplies under the EC Treaty and prepare for their competitiveness after accession,

• because after the completion of the WTO II Round they have to be competitive both on domestic and export markets and

• in order to achieve a higher profitability of individual establishments.

• Adequate detection of epizootics, in particular those that may be transmitted to man through milk.

In order to achieve this, it is necessary
 
• to organise efficient veterinary and food surveillance and
• to introduce mandatory notification of diseases in dairy animals.

• Establishment of efficient independent laboratories for the analysis of milk on

• plate count,
• somatic cell count,
• water content,
• antibiotics,
• residues and contaminants,
• milk components (fat, protein, lactose etc) for quality payment, which I will discuss later.

• Co-operation with relevant institutions in EU Member Countries is possible and also in the interest of the Community as

• it allows early detection of epizootic agents and their elimination in the initial stage,
• it facilitates quality grading of milk and milk products in supply contracts,
• cooperations between laboratories in the fields of education, taking over used laboratory equipment at favourable conditions and co-ordination of interlaboratory studies for calibration are useful.

Measures to maintain and improve milk quality/hygiene in production and processing of milk

• Purposeful commitment and investments as well as co-operation between farmers, interest groups, manufacturers and authorities are essential to the successful adoption of measures.
• In my opinion, the applicant states and Eastern European Countries will not immediately be able to satisfy Western European quality and hygiene standards. However, these have to be complied with when exporting to the Community. As far as the domestic markets are concerned, it will be necessary to be more generous for the time being.
• Nevertheless, purposeful measures should be initiated as soon as possible.
• As milk also constitutes a formidable substrate for pathogens and other undesired microorganisms, these must be prevented from growing by cooling the milk and applying pasteurization or other (heat) treatments that destroy microorganisms or at least hinder their growth.

In this respect, it is essential that if possible the entire milk volume is subjected to these measures in order to ensure the safety of public and animal health.
• It must be seen to the fact that programmes aiming at the eradication of diseases and the rebuilding of dairy herds are combined in such a way that healthy animals are not infected by diseased animals since that would wreck the rebuilding efforts to a large extent.
• In combination with the introduction of standards for the improvement of milk hygiene and quality in production, treatment, processing and marketing, a quality payment scheme on the basis of the following parameters has to be introduced:

• milk components,
• maximum limits for residues and contaminants,
• maximum levels of antibiotics,
• somatic cell counts,
• determination of water content,
• cooling and storage of the milk on the farm to rationalize milk collection.

• Our experience with East Germany has shown that with the large herds it might become necessary to allow the division of herds on the basis of milk quality and health status of the animals.

This offers the possibility

• to separate better cows yielding a higher milk price from the less profitable cows with reduced milk payment,
• to take full advantage of milk quality premiums,
• to combine treatment and culling programmes with the enlargement of the healthy part of the herd in a sensible way.

• Everybody knows that sour milk is unsuitable for further processing.
• Milk containing contaminants or residues affects the consumer (chlorohydrocarbons, heavy metals, polychlorinated biphenyls and dioxins, aflatoxin and other toxins).

Contamination of milk with these substances is either due to the application of veterinary drugs, carry-over from feedingstuffs or environmental factors. Persistent contaminants involve the risk of accumulation in the food chain, which is particularly dangerous to breast-fed infants.
• The addition of water to milk leads to increased costs of transport and processing (e.g. drying), results in a higher risk of infection by the added water and in general borders on fraud in the legal sense.

This problem can only be solved by spot checks on water content and payment on the basis of milk components.
• A high plate count in milk affects flavour and taste even if the count of raw milk may be reduced by heat treatment.

Destruction of the microorganisms, however, does not mean that the enzymes and toxins already produced are also eliminated by heat.
In this context it has to be critically pointed out that many dairies use raw milk with a higher plate count for the manufacture of heat-treated products assuming that the application of high temperature short time pasteurization would ensure complete destruction of the micro-organisms. They are, however, neglecting the fact that the enzymes and toxins that have already been produced and survive heat treatment cause early spoilage especially in milk products that are normally characterized by longer shelf-life.
It is therefore recommended to use in the manufacture of heat-treated milk only raw materials with the lowest possible plate count that has undergone careful and hygienic treatment.
• Milk with high somatic cell count is an indicator for mastitis, which has severe economic implications for the milk producer.

• Milk containing inhibitors, especially antibiotics, must not be put on the market as foodstuff for reasons of health protection (Regulation 2377/90/EEC on maximum residue levels).

Even small amounts of such milk affect processing of large milk volumes in the dairy.
Above all, milk containing antibiotics can no longer be used for the manufacture of products that involve the addition of cultures in the dairy (fermented milk, cheese etc.).
Time and again milk with antibiotics is detected. This gives rise to the concern that it might enter the drinking milk sector and have negative effects on the consumer.
For this reason, it must be withdrawn from the market.

• The production of wholesome and top quality milk is a prerequisite for medium-term economic success.
• Utmost care on the farm level, however, is futile if cold storage during transport and rapid hygienic and careful processing in the dairy is not ensured.

Conclusion

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am fully aware of the fact that I have said too little about the requirements dairies have to meet. I am often told that lack of high quality raw milk constitutes the main impediment to investments from Western dairy companies and causes some frustration.
The subject of milk processing will certainly be discussed in the following presentation by Mr. Birker.

For the future, a trend towards comprehensive simplification of the Community's rules on milk quality and hygiene begins to emerge.
In this context it will be necessary to follow the progress of standardisation on international level by IDF, FAO/WHO and GATT/WTO.
It is my wishful dream that we might as soon as possible succeed in developing a simplified certificate for the import and export of milk that would replace the large number of bilateral equivalence agreements on the trade in dairy products.
As far as milk components and for instance potential standardisation not only of milk fat but also of milk protein are concerned, we need in the long run a legal framework that accommodates the technological potential in milk processing.
Last but not least, the issue of hormones and genetically engineered enzymes will keep us all busy in the future.

1. Laying down of health rules for obtaining, treating, producing and placing on the market of

• raw and certified milk,
• heat-treated drinking milk,
• industrial milk,
• milk-based products (e.g. dairy products, cheese, butter) and foodstuffs of which milk constitutes a major part (ice cream)

1. As a rule these provisions also cover milk from other animals than cows.

 
2. The provisions also apply

• to wholesalers,
• retailers, restaurants and catering establishments provided they also produce edible ice.

4. The provisions do not apply to establishments using milk or milk-based products for the manufacture of foodstuffs that are not covered by the Scope as described above (delicatessen industry, bakeries etc.). In those cases general food law is applicable.

1. Raw cow's milk must

1.1 meet the following requirements for the manufacture of heat-treated drinking milk, fermented milk, yoghurt, kefir, cream and milk blends:
 

1.2 meet the following additional requirements for the manufacture of raw milk products:
a) Staphylococcus aureus (ml) n³⁾ = 5 m⁴⁾ = 500 M⁵⁾ = 2000 c⁶⁾ = 2
b) Salmonella (ml) n³⁾=5 m⁴⁾=0 M⁵⁾=0 c⁶⁾=0c) other pathogens and their toxins must not be present at levels that may affect the health of the consumers.

1.3 meet the following requirements for the manufacture of other milk-based products:
 

(1) Geometric mean over a period of two months with at least two samples a month.
(2) Geometric mean over a period of three months with at least one sample a month.
(3) n = number of samples;
(4) m = threshold value; result is considered satisfactory if individual samples do not exceed this value;
(5) M = maximum value; result is considered unsatisfactory if sample values are exceeding this value;
(6) c = number of samples between m and M; result is considered satisfactory if other samples < m.
(7) Transitional rule that, however, required separate collection and delivery of raw milk and therefore expired on 31 .12. 1997.
 
 

(1) Anyone producing or treating milk or milk-based products in treatment or processing establishments must:
1. by means of own-checks
a) identify the critical points on the basis of the process used,
b) lay down and apply methods for monitoring and checking of such critical points as appropriate for the amount of milk processed and milk-based products manufactured
c) monitor the checking result in order to check compliance with the relevant standards and
d) draw up a plan for cleaning and disinfection of working areas, equipment and instruments and check the results of the cleaning and disinfection methods applied
2. keep records of the measures applied and the results of the checks in compliance with 1. and produce them at the request of the competent authority.
 
(2) The records shall in particular be kept in chronological order for two years. This period shall be reduced to three months after use-by or minimum durability date for milk-based products that cannot be stored at ambient temperatures.
(3) For the purpose of these own checks processing establishments must either have their own laboratory or have the checks carried out by a registered laboratory.
 

UHT and sterilized drinking milk must satisfy the following requirements in spot checks at the treatment and/or processing establishment:
 
 

Source: H.D. Böhm/W. Heeschen: Das neue Milchrecht ’95, p. 33
 
 

Chart 2: Growth rates of micro-organisms with different optimum temperatures
 
 

Source: H.D. Böhm/W. Heeschen: Das neue Milchrecht ’95, p. 25
 
 
 

Chart 3: Residues and contaminants in milk and milk products
 
 

Source: H.D. Böhm/W. Heeschen: Das neue Milchrecht ’95, p. 40

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