A workshop on ‘milk and product quality’ was held at Teagasc Moorepark on Tuesday, December 4 and was repeated on Thursday in Cavan.

At the workshop, information on milk quality issues was provided to key industry stakeholders. Over 140 delegates attended the workshop over the two days. Ireland is recognised internationally as a producer of high quality milk and dairy products and it is important that this position is maintained.

”Quality standards are continually increasing and if Ireland is to remain a major player in international traded dairy products and ingredients we need to ensure that our industry attains these evolving standards,” Dr Tom Beresford who is head of the Food BioSciences Department with Teagasc said.

“The dairy industry is going through a very exciting period with an expectation of major expansion in milk output in the years ahead, as a consequence of the removal of EU milk production quotas in 2015.”

Teagasc operates a very dynamic research sub-programme on milk and product quality. It should be seen as a national resource in this area due to its unique capacity to undertake research along the complete milk pipeline from ‘Farm to Fork’. The expertise and infrastructure in milk production systems, within the Teagasc Animal and Grassland Research and Innovation Programme is coupled with its capacity to convert milk into a wide range of dairy products and ingredients within the Teagasc Food Programme.

Indeed the fact that most of this capacity is located at a single site at Moorepark, Fermoy makes Teagasc one of the few organisations internationally that can undertake this type of research.

The main topics for discussion at the workshops included new data on monitoring and controlling residues in milk, detergent use and washing systems within the milking parlour and factors influencing bacterial and somatic cell count levels in milk.

There was a strong focus on the practical application of the knowledge and how it could be applied in a realistic manner at farm level.