Safety & Quality Articles
What are protective cultures and other bio-preservative approaches?
By John Lucey
Dairy Foods Magazine | April 2025
Protective cultures are an emerging and growing area in the food industry, including for use in dairy products. Among other benefits, they can help reduce food waste and spoilage. In yogurt and cheese applications, we use starter cultures to produce lactic acid. However, protective cultures aren’t added to produce acid and help with the fermentation; they instead can provide some degree of protection against pathogens and spoilage organisms.
ViewRaw milk is having a moment
By John Lucey
Cheese Market News | April 2025
I have written before about the risks of raw milk consumption but, due to rumors of a change in federal regulations by the current administration that would greatly expand the sale of raw milk, I want to dig even deeper into some of the false claims being used to promote the consumption of raw milk.
ViewImpact of the avian flu outbreak in cattle for dairy processing
By John Lucey
Dairy Foods Magazine | January 2025
Early last Spring, some dairy cows, initially in Texas, started to get ill. The cows’ symptoms included dehydration and increased temperature. They also stopped ruminating and their milk production plummeted. Farmers didn’t know the cause of the illness. Then, cats on these farms began to get ill and/or die after drinking raw milk from these cows. Testing on these cats confirmed that they had a strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1. It was a major surprise that this virus had jumped to cattle, and how this occurred is unknown. We do know that this virus is in migratory wildfowl.
ViewRaw milk consumption continues to pose serious food safety risks
By John Lucey
Cheese Market News | April 2024
It’s very surprising to me that many states across the U.S. have, in recent years, passed legislation to allow for greater access and sales of raw fluid milk. Consumption of raw fluid milk is a food safety risk due to routine (unintended) contamination of milk with pathogens that are commonplace in the farm environment.
ViewCauses of microbiological defects in cheese
By John Lucey
Dairy Foods Magazine | October 2023
Cheesemakers are constantly striving to make high-quality cheese by avoiding the occurrence of any unwanted attributes or defects. There are many causes of defects in cheese and I will focus on those that are directly related to microbiological issues. We can broadly separate the source of this contamination into those occurring on the farm or at the cheese plant.
ViewSustainable Innovations in cheese packaging
By John Lucey
Dairy Foods | April 2023
Packaging is essential to maintaining and protecting the quality of the cheese product as well as attracting the eye of consumers. There are some interesting innovations in the food packaging industry. We are also facing challenges and questions like how can we produce packaging that is recyclable and/or biodegradable?
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