🔄 Milk reception

Milk reception is the first stage of processing at the dairy: the milk tanker arrives, the dairy assesses the milk, measures its quantity, cools it below +4 °C and pumps it into silo tanks. According to the Tetra Pak handbook, taste and smell, cleanliness, bacteria and somatic cells, fat, protein, acidity and freezing point are checked beforehand.

The volume is determined by weighing the milk tanker on a road scale before and after unloading, or by passing the milk through a flow meter. An air eliminator stands before the flow meter, because air bubbles would distort the result. Next the milk goes through a strainer and a plate cooler: during transport it warms slightly above +4 °C, and here it is cooled again.

Silo tanks usually stand outdoors, insulated, hold from 50,000 to 500,000 litres and have an agitator that works slowly and intermittently. Sensors monitor temperature and level, and an upper sensor closes the inlet valve so the tank does not overflow. Milk tankers are washed every day at the end of the trip.

EU rules: milk accepted for processing is quickly cooled to no more than +6 °C if processing does not start within four hours. Raw milk may not be placed on the market if antibiotic residues exceed the permitted values (Regulation 853/2004).

+4 °C or +6 °C? The two figures are easy to mix up. Below +4 °C is how cold the dairy cools milk before it goes into the silos: it warms slightly in transport, so the dairy cools it again. +6 °C is the EU ceiling that applies after reception if processing does not begin within four hours. The first number is the working target of the cold chain at the dairy; the second is the limit the law does not let milk exceed.

You cannot see milk reception on the shelf, but you see its result: milk in a chilled cabinet at a supermarket, dairy shop or farm shop comes from batches that passed this check. Read the product name “milk”, the “use by” date and the storage temperature on the label. Raw milk for direct consumption carries the words “raw milk” and has not been heated above 40 °C, so a pack without that mark is not sold as raw milk.

Why it matters to you. Reception is where it is decided whether milk goes into a product. So the drinking milk and cheese from the store are made from batches that passed this check, and the cold chain that begins on the farm is not broken here: the milk is cooled again below +4 °C on its way to the silos.