NatuRal bioactivE moleCules foR safE And subsTainablE dairy products – AROMATIC

The production milk and dairy products made from raw milk of cows or other animals (goat, sheep, camel…) is an agri-food sector with high production volumes and product diversification in all the Mediterranean countries.
Milk and dairy products play a role of primary importance in the diet of local consumers of all ages for the supply of essential nutrients such as high biological value proteins, vitamins and minerals. These products also represent a resource for the economic sustenance of marginal areas and, for their high quality and genuineness, deserve a boost for expansion on a global scale market.
Also raw milk for direct consumption can be considered a typical product for countries, such as Egypt, where most consumers consider it safer than heat sanitized milk for a deeply-rooted popular belief.
However, raw milk, notably due to many microbiological hazards has a very short shelf life leading to waste rejections when milk overproduction is combined with lack of transformation industries and/or bad freezing conditions. Furthermore, hot climate conditions could be a limitation for dairy products conservation. Then, microbiological risks and deterioration processes that can occur in raw milk and derived products pose a public health risk and determine a very short shelf life of the product which is an obstacle for its distribution at longer distances.
The project proposed here aims to develop selected simple and efficient methods using natural and safe antimicrobials and/or antioxydants from plants, notably some traditionnaly used for ancestral dairy products, to better protect raw milk from microbial contamination, prior to direct consumption or cheesemaking, by inhibiting pathogenic and spoilage bacteria.
The three partners involved will carry out distinct tasks in which they will examine traditional cheesemaking processing involving plants usage in order to evaluate the potential of those plants to favorize their conservation by spoilage and pathogens inhibition. In the same way, plant extracts know for their antimicrobial effect but not yet exploited for dairy productions will be also considers. The objective is to select those that better guarantee safety without inhibiting important microbial components and optimize their use in real production conditions.
At the term of the project, the capacity to produce bioactive molecules from plants will be assessed in milk containing microbial associations of pathogenic bacteria of major concern for raw milk and pro-technological bacteria.
The antimicrobial treatments that will be found to inhibit undesired microorganisms and not to extensively alter the composition and chemical parameters of milk, will be tested in cheese production trials with real raw milk samples to confirm the advantages of application also at the sensorial level. The project is expected to provide simple methods that can be delivered to small producers to increase safety and quality of raw milk and derived products even in the lack of industrial dairy facilities.