The Hindu Business Line : Paras group launches `bactofuged' milk

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Paras group launches `bactofuged' milk

Harish Damodaran

Unlike pasteurisation and UHT treatment, bactofugation is a non-thermal process for removing bacteria, particularly the heat-resistant spores, using a high-speed centrifugal separator or `bactofuge'.

New Delhi , April 12

AFTER UHT milk, it is `bactofuged' milk that is making waves in liquid milk marketing.

First it was the Rs 360-crore Chennai-based Hatsun Agro Products Ltd (makers of `Arun' ice-cream and `Komatha' and `Arokya' milk), which, nearly four years back, introduced the `bacteria clarification' process to remove `all pathogenic bacteria' in order to ensure that its milk was `absolutely safe' for drinking.

Now it is the turn of the Delhi-based Rs 400-crore Paras group (Vedram & Sons), which sells about 2.5 lakh litres per day (LLPD) of liquid milk in the National Capital Region under the `Paras' brand, to launch milk that is "not just pasteurised, but bactofuged".

Mr Gajinder Kumar, Managing Partner of Vedram said: "We are the first and only dairy in North India to use bactofugation technology that makes our milk 100 per cent free of harmful bacteria."

What is bactofugation and how is it different from pasteurisation or ultra high temperature (UHT) treatment?

Pasteurisation involves par-boiling (heating below boiling point) the milk to about 75 degrees Celsius for roughly 15 seconds using continuous-flow `high temperature-short time' (HTLT) process heat exchangers.

This process kills more than 90 per cent of the bacteria, especially the harmful pathogens such as Mycobacterium bovis (which causes bovine tuberculosis that also affects humans) and Salmonellae (responsible for gastrointestinal diseases and typhoid fevers).

Pasteurisation does not, however, destroy the spoilage bacteria that cause curdling.

Also, it leaves out certain heat-resistant bacteria (including dead bacteria) and spores (seeds) that can break down the milk proteins or, in certain cases, cause `sweet curdling'.

To address this, dairies resort to UHT treatment, which involves heating the milk up to 137 degrees Celsius for two seconds and then packaging it under aseptic conditions.

Milk processed in this way is virtually sterile and can be kept un-refrigerated in tetrapacks for several months.

"But UHT milk is expensive because it requires packing the milk in tetrapacks, which costs about Rs 6, compared to just 50 paise for ordinary plastic pouches," said Mr Kumar.

Bactofugation, he claimed, achieves the objective of getting rid of all heat-resistant bacteria and spores without entailing much additional cost.

The bactofuged milk also has a higher shelf life than the normal pasteurised milk, he said. "We are making available bactofuged milk at the price at which other dairies are offering pasteurised milk."

Unlike pasteurisation and UHT treatment, bactofugation is a non-thermal process for removing bacteria, particularly the heat-resistant spores, using a high-speed centrifugal separator or `bactofuge'.

Essentially, it employs the principle of expelling the bacterial spores (which are heavier than milk) through centrifugal force action.

"There is nothing new to this technology. Our dairies in Mehsana and Gandhinagar have been using bactofuges for the last five years. But we never felt the need to project this as a USP," said Mr R.S. Sodhi, General Manager (Marketing), Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF or Amul).

Since GCMMF is an exporter of milk powder and European Union regulations require the product to be completely free of dead bacteria, "we have been using bactofugation as a matter of course".

Moreover, the need for bactofugation really arises only for making cheese or other cultured products.

"The primary objective of this treatment is to remove heat-resistant spores like those of butyric acid bacteria, which may germinate during the ripening of hard cheeses and negatively affect product quality. For liquid milk, pasteurisation is more than sufficient since it destroys the major disease-causing micro-organisms," a dairy technologist said, quoting extracts from Ionel Rosenthal's Milk and Diary Products: Properties and Processing, a standard industry reference manual.

Mr Sodhi claimed that the bactofuged milk campaign used by Paras was in response to GCMMF's hard-sell about its milk in Delhi being `fresh' and not reconstituted from milk powder.

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