Fresh, or raw, milk transported from farms to dairy processing facilities in tanker trucks contains a diverse mix of microbes, which varies from season to season, report researchers at the University of California, Davis.
Microbes with the potential to cause disease are destroyed during milk pasteurization, but not all bacteria and their associated enzymes are eliminated by that process. The remaining bacteria retain the ability to cause spoilage and quality defects in dairy foods.
Despite the diversity, a core community of microbes remains constant through the seasons and across the various farms from which the milk is collected, the researchers found. Surprisingly, this core microbiota is quite vulnerable to change when the raw milk is transferred to large storage silos at the dairy processing plant.
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