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E-mail conference on Poster Paper: Traditional Milk
Products |
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P.R. GUPTA, Editor & Publisher,
Dairy India Yearbook & Technology of Indian Milk Products (In
Print), India Milk occupies an exalted position in
India. Its roots go back to some 6,000 years when milch animals were
domesticated. Simple processes were developed to preserve milk’s nutritive goodness
as a means to protect and promote health. In their search for ways to prevent
milk spoilage and find uses for surplus milk, a number of products were
developed. They were curds (yoghurt-like fermented product), makkhan
(butter), khoa (desiccated milk product), chhana and paneer (soft cottage
cheese-like cultured product) and ghee (clarified butter). A wide range
of sweets was produced for consumption on festive occasions. They
included rasogolla, sandesh, burfi, peda, shrikhand, gulabjamun, lassi, misti
doi and kheer (rice pudding), combining delicious taste and flavour
with fitness and health. These ethnic products constitute the world of
traditional dairy products. The milk handling practices, as developed
in the olden times, from producer to consumer were based on simple approach
and science and were handed down from generation to generation to serve home,
smallholders and trade. They are low-cost, appropriate and sustainable. |
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Examples: (a) Milk and its products are consumed
fresh and therefore the centres of milk production and consumption are close
by. So, the need for expensive refrigerated storage and distribution is not
necessary. This insistence on freshness in food has become something of an
obsession in the Indian mind and is now an ingrained consumer mind set that
is not easily grasped by an outsider. Traditional products account for over 90
per cent of all dairy products consumed in the country. The organised dairy
sector in India, however, focuses on the Western dairy products like milk powder,
butter, cheese and ice cream for its product mix. One exception is ghee.
Further, it only handles about 10-12 per cent of the total milk produced in
the country. To strengthen its viability and increase its share, it must
widen its product base. This can best be achieved by going in for traditional
milk products for which the technology is available. Their production has the
potential of becoming a major profit centre for the organised dairy
sector. The process modernisation for making
traditional dairy products has taken impressive strides. However, there
is no need to reinvent the wheel because some of the food processing methods
available in the West can be usefully adapted to mass production of
traditional products. Some process modifications may, however, become
necessary. In recent years, some outstanding
innovations have been made at the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and
the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI) for the assembly-line production
of burfi, dahi, kheer, shrikhand, gulabjamun, rasogolla, mishti doi and the
like, by adapting the modern tools and technology. An admirable example of Western
technology adaptation is the manufacture of shrikhand on a large scale,
using basket centrifuges, quarg separators and planetary mixers, used by
bakeries. Today, the volume of shrikhand manufactured by the organised sector
exceeds that of processed cheese sold in India. The manufacture of khoa, using roller
driers and scraped surface heat exchangers, is another instance of the use of
the modern technology. UF/RO technologies can also be used for chhana making
and concentration of milk for many indigenous dairy products. The use of meat
ball forming machines and potato fryers for manufacturing gulabjamuns on a
large scale is a good example of integrating the traditional with the
modern. Packaging of these products can also
follow a similar approach. In Italy, Mozzarella cheese balls are being packed
in whey in consumer packs. This can be tried to market rasogollas and
gulabjamuns. Chocolate and candy packaging lines can be used to pack burfi
and peda. Tetrapaks can be used to pack lassi, basundi, kheer and sevian.
Japanese Tofu resembles paneer that can be packaged similarly. Modernization of this sector will also
result in energy savings. While manufacturing sweets in traditional ways,
much heat energy goes waste which can possibly be recovered in a modern
plant. Evaporation of milk in a karahi (resembling the Chinese wok) consumes
five times more energy than vacuum evaporators. Large-scale manufacture of these products
will also open the way for trying out newer ingredients. The processed food
industry in the United States has emerged as the largest user of corn syrup
solids and high fructose corn syrup. These sweeteners add to the moisture
retention properties of many foods, apart from adjusting the sweetness to a
desired level. The technology of recombining milk constituents can also help
in making many traditional products such as khoa and chhana. These exciting
possibilities can be explored to the advantage of the processors and
consumers. Manufacture of khoa and chhana as powder
is another way of using Western technology to make indigenous products. How
far these modifications will be accepted will ultimately be decided by the
consumer. The advent of convenience foods and their increased acceptability
will further support the modernisation of this sector. India’s most modern plant for traditional
dairy products is that of the Baroda District Cooperative Milk Producers
Union Ltd (Sugam Dairy) at Vadodara in Gujarat. It markets its products
through a large network of hundreds of retail outlets in the city. The Sugam
Dairy uses the traditional grocery/general stores that have a refrigerator to
market its products. The product range includes shrikhand, gulabjamuns, pedas
and curds, apart from flavoured milks. The dairy has the highest turnover of
a single unit, marketing traditional dairy products. The Mother Dairy in Calcutta markets
mishti doi in a similar fashion. Dairies in Punjab and Haryana market
lassi, paneer and kalakand (also, lately, milk cake). Cooperative dairies in
Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka also sell makkhan, khoa, peda
and kulfi. Gokul, Mahanand and Warana dairies in Maharashtra are also
marketing shrikhand through their sales outlets. The major strength of the traditional
dairy product sector is the mass appeal it enjoys. Not only does its market
far exceed that for Western dairy products, but its operating margins are
also much higher. The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has worked out
standard specifications for the quality of khoa, shrikhand, burfi, rasogollas
and gulabjamuns, and those for other products are being worked out. The
increasing demand for traditional products presents a great opportunity for
the organised dairy sector in India to strengthen its base and take a larger
share of the expanding milk production which is expected to cross 100
million-tonne level by 2005. Reading List:
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