Now, dairies such as leading Brazilian dairy producer Barbosa & Marques are reducing the cost of raw milk testing by moving over to new analytical technology that tests for both bacteria and somatic cell count.
This has led to:
• A considerable reduction of microbiological testing
• Reduced reliance on skilled staff because the new equipment is very easy to operate
• Reduced travel to their supplying farmers because now they can identify which farmers to visit from the test results
• Reduced cost for the farmers because the somatic cell count tests gives an early warning of mastitis in cows
Quality Manager, Raquel Sant'Anna Nepomuceno, from Barbosa & Marques, explains how a new analyser called the BacSomatic is providing rapid screening of raw milk for both bacteria and somatic cell count in a single test taking less than ten minutes. It compares very favourably to the minimum two days it takes with traditional microbiological testing.
“If any result is found to be out of standard, we segregate samples from the farmers individually and run individual tests,” says Sant'Anna Nepomuceno. “We have also gained time in the field as we work together with farmers (our employees pay regular visits to them). This has reduced the mileage because now we know where to go. Besides, we are expanding our technical assistance for performing animal analysis to detect mastitis that is not yet in its initial stage, which also reduces costs to the farmers.”
Read the full story here.
The new BacSomatic analyser is based on flow cytometry technology. Read more in our e-book on the subject of testing bacteria in raw milk with flow cytometry.
