Special Issue 9502 - Milk protein definition - Milk protein standardization

Publication description

Milk protein definition
Proceedings of the 2nd IDF Symposium held in Aarhus, Denmark, 22 June 1994

Milk protein is internationally defined as Total Nitrogen x 6.38. Proposals have been made to discount either the fraction called ‘non protein nitrogen’, or the urea fraction. This would reduce the declared protein for milk and many milk products by 5 or 2.5%. Such a change could have significant implications with respect to payment to producers, animal breeding records, nutrition labelling and the position of dairy products against competitive products such as soya. These key issues and the question of whether they give sufficiently strong reason to change the current international definition of milk protein are discussed.

Milk protein standardization
Proceedings of the IDF Symposium held in Aarhus, Denmark, 23-24 June 1994
Fair competition and economic pressure have encouraged consideration of means of adjusting, both to increase and decrease, the protein content of milk products. Reliable technologies are now available to achieve the goal of protein standardization. IDF is considering draft standards which will permit the standardization of the protein content of milk products (within limits imposed by practical constraints and a minimum protein content in the solids-non-fat) by the addition and/or withdrawal of milk constituents in such a way as not to alter the whey protein to casein ratio. The papers presented here address the practical aspects of protein standardization and its legislative and economic consequences.