Dairy innovation
February 2013
Beyond the simple glass of milk: Melbourne’s research hub for dairy manufacturing.
Melbournians know their city to be the location for some of Australia’s finest medical research and a large number of biotechnology companies. But did you know that Melbourne is also a central location for agricultural research underpinning Victoria’s large agricultural industries? With about 65 percent of the Australian dairy industry based in the State of Victoria, it is no wonder that Melbourne is also the base for innovative dairy science and technology.
The dairy industry is Victoria’s largest rural industry. A total of 4,588 of the about 6,800 Australian dairy farms are located in Victoria in one of the three pre-dominant dairy regions: the Northern irrigation district, Gippsland and the Southwest of the state. About one million cows are milked daily and produced 5.91 billion litres of milk in 2010/11 with a farm gate value of $2.48 billion. Drought conditions and water shortages have resulted in a substantial decrease in milk production in Northern Victoria since 2007/08, but more favourable conditions since 2011/12 indicate that production is on the rise again. Milk produced in Victoria is manufactured into dairy products and liquid drinking milk. There are over 20 large dairy processing plants located in the state mainly in the production regions. All of Australia’s large dairy processors have a manufacturing footprint in Victoria: Murray Goulburn, Fonterra, Parmalat, Warrnambool Cheese and Butter, Bega and Lion Dairy and Drinks. But smaller dairy processors play a key role as well as exporters or manufacturers of familiar brands: United Dairy Power, Bulla and Burra Foods, not to mention some of the finest artisan cheese manufacturers such as Yarra Valley Dairy, Meredith or Milawa. The dairy industry employs over 20,000 people in the state.
Australian dairy products are highly regarded in overseas markets and our ‘clean green’ reputation is due to the fact that much of the dairy production still depends on pasture feeding. Australia is a significant exporter of dairy products contributing about eight percent of the global dairy export trade. Milk produced in Victoria contributes 86 percent to Australia’s dairy export volume, and thus returns to farmers are very much determined by the strong exposure to global market conditions such as commodity prices and currency exchange rates. In 2010/11, Victoria’s dairy exports added about $1.96 billion of value post-farm gate. It is no surprise that two of the largest products exported from the Port of Melbourne are powdered milk products and bulk cheese.
Victoria’s dairy industry is mature and well organised. Both the farm sector and the dairy manufacturing sector are supported by national research and innovation programs based in Melbourne. Significant research support for the farm sector in soil science, animal science and pasture crops is conducted through the Department of Primary Industries and the Dairy Futures CRC. The industry peak body, Dairy Australia, supports both on farm research and research in dairy manufacturing.
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Innovation does not stop at the farm gate: Australia’s dairy processors have created a unique open innovation model for research and innovation in all things that relate to the processing and manufacturing of milk into dairy products. Dairy Innovation Australia Limited (DIAL) is a national post-farm gate research centre based in Victoria. The not-for-profit company was founded in 2007 and supports the dairy manufacturing sector with state-of-the-art technology capability and a large network of academic research partners in Australia and overseas. The innovation model DIAL operates allows participating dairy processors to share the cost for expensive exploratory and novel research technologies and benefit from use of resources and capabilities developed to enable tailored technology transfer and scale-up trials. As a result, dairy processors are able to support innovation activities across a wide range of processing technologies and hugely diverse dairy product ranges.
Next time you go to the supermarket, take a look at the diverse products that are made from milk. Starting with drinking milk, you will have the choice of any fat level from skim to reduced fat to full cream, or milks fortified with calcium or vitamin D. Moving on to the cheese section, cheddar and mozzarella are still the mainstay of the Australian household, but the number of other cheese varieties on offer is steadily expanding – all available in a number of different sizes from the 1 kg bloc to small bite size portions, shredded cheeses or slices. You will find a large range of other fermented dairy products; have you noticed the recent boom in new varieties of yoghurt? Then there are custards, sour cream, cream cheese, and dips in the refrigerated section.
There is also a wide range of shelf stable dairy products manufactured in Victoria: UHT milk, milk powders and infant formula. We can’t think of sports nutrition without referring to whey powders. And what many consumers may not know – there are a whole host of minor components in milk that convey additional health benefits. A number of dairy bioactive compounds have been shown to boost immunity, to help with iron metabolism, to prevent the growth of bacteria (antimicrobial), and to lower blood pressure. Quite a few of Victoria’s dairy processors have sophisticated processing lines capable of extracting these bioactive components and providing them as ingredients for infant formula and other nutritional products.
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The list of manufacturing processes that enable the constant diversification and innovation of dairy products and ensure their consistent delivery to and safety for the consumer is long. Starting with transport and pasteurisation, separation technologies such as centrifugation or membrane filtration, fermentation with dairy cultures, evaporation and drying technologies, chromatography, cutting, formulation, filling, packaging – and there are many others. And finally, how can dairy processors extract value from by-products and reduce the environmental footprint of these energy and resource intensive processes? Dairy Innovation Australia (DIAL) conducts research and technology transfer in all these areas relevant to dairy manufacturing technologies and product characterisation supporting its member companies, Australian dairy processors who are collectively processing about 70 percent of the milk produced in Australia. A highlight for the six-year-old company was the move into its own premises on Princes Highway in Werribee in November 2012. As an industry funded research institute, DIAL provides state-of-the-art research laboratories, a manufacturing pilot plant, food technology laboratories, sensory laboratory and meeting facilities. With 37 staff, DIAL provides dairy processors with access to a team of highly skilled experts in process engineering, dairy microbiology, and dairy product and ingredient characterisation. DIAL staff develop academic research collaborations in Australia and globally and at the same time lead teams in technology transfer and implementation projects in commercial dairy factories, creating a new breed of scientist with a deep understanding of the context in which innovations are applied and effective in the world of manufacturing. Working on pre-competitive as well as commercially sensitive projects, the DIAL experts are building their reputation as trusted intermediaries and contribute to productivity gains by translating and applying research outcomes to factory specific improvements. Recognising the potential of this innovation and technology transfer model, the Victorian Department of Business and Innovation recently awarded DIAL a $300,000 grant to expand and formalise its technology implementation strategy and address critical barriers in the translation and adoption of novel technologies.
A good example of the success of the DIAL innovation model are the outcomes from investments to improve the energy efficiency of powder manufacture and the consistency and functionality of different powder products, for example properties such as solubility and longer shelf life. Powdered dairy products are skim and whole milk powder, whey powder, butter milk powder, specialty bioactive powders and other ingredients for infant and nutritional formulas. When DIAL was formed there was little expertise in Australia in spray drying. Led by DIAL, with support from major funding initiatives such as the Gardiner Foundation, a total of about $10 million was invested over five years to build and implement technology support – about 0.2% of the revenues achieved from powder production. DIAL has been able to transfer a range of the new technologies to a number of the 41 spray drying plants in Australia. The technologies deliver improved run times and yield increases and generate the opportunity to deliver more than $12 million in annual benefits within seven years with continued adoption.
Cheddar cheese is another of Victoria’s pre-dominant dairy products. Major cheese makers purchase their starter cultures from Dairy Innovation Australia, despite the fact that frozen and ‘freeze dried’ culture concentrates are available from international suppliers. DIAL also supplies starter cultures for mozzarella and hard grating cheese. About 40 percent of Australian produced cheese is made using cultures from the DIAL starter culture production facility. The use of these starter cultures is very economical, delivering an annual benefit to the dairy processors of about $3 million. Underpinning this effort is a collection of almost 3,000 strains of dairy cultures housed at DIAL.
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Over the first six years since its foundation, DIAL has delivered over 50 pre-competitive research projects conducted either internally or in collaboration with academic partners. DIAL has an extensive network with the Australian research community to access expertise and platform technologies such as electron microscopy, confocal laser scanning microscopy or the Australian Synchrotron. In Victoria, key research partnerships are with University of Melbourne and the Bio21 Institute, with Monash University and with Victoria University. DIAL is one of the few dedicated dairy research organisations in the world and maintaining close connections to the international research communities is important. This occurs through joint projects with collaborators in countries such as France and the Netherlands and by hosting international conferences such as the 4th International Symposium on Spray Dried Dairy Products held in the Melbourne Convention Centre in 2009. The next joint symposium of the International Dairy Federation (IDF) on the Microstructure of Dairy Products and Fermented Milk is planned for 2014, and Dairy Innovation Australia will be involved in the organisation.
Finally, the Dairy Health and Nutrition Consortium (DHNC) is one of DIAL’s key programs building research partnerships with health and nutrition scientists. Whilst the benefits of dairy consumption is well accepted for childhood development and infant nutrition and also in the context of building strong bones and prevention of osteoporosis, there are many more health benefits that can be attributed to consumption of dairy products. The Dairy Health and Nutrition Consortium collaborates, for example, with the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne on clinical and epidemiological projects that have delivered new evidence indicating that high dairy consumption can lower the risk of lifestyle related diseases such as type 2 diabetes or cardiovascular disease.
Dr Barbara Meurer is Manager – Milk Quality & Biotechnology, Dairy Innovation Australia Ltd
Photos courtesy of DIAL