A new analyser is capable of assessing a wide range of components in milk within 60 seconds and is significantly cheaper than its rivals, helping dairies to improve efficiency in quality control, its manufacturer claims.
The Milk Examiners, developed by Milk-Lab UK in Lancashire, northern England, use ultrasound spectroscopic technology to provide accurate analysis of milk inside one minute.
Milk-Lab said typical prices ranged from £2,000, compared to around £25,000 for a number of rival machines.
The firm could help both UK dairy firms and milk farmers, who are striving to increase efficiency and bring down costs in the sector after having struggled with intense pressure on earnings in recent years.
The 60-second turnaround could also help the sector to better monitor milk, an increasingly important issue following the EU's assertion that Britain must improve quality control in its dairy industry.
“Milk–Lab Examiners allow small to medium dairies cost free, fast, accurate analyses to the most crucial compositional parameters of milk, which has not been possible till now,” said Vanessa Uysal, Milk-Lab's sales director.
She told the analysers could run continuously without the need for a technician to watch over them. “Other more expensive machines on the market can be quite complicated to operate, but with our machines it is simply just pushing a button.”
The Examiners are also self-cleaning and do not use hazardous chemicals, the firm said.
Other features include the ability to help dairies and farmers standardise their products, and so reduce losses, conduct screening in milk for early signs of cattle disease Mastitis, and to act as a portable back-up device for existing analysis equipment.
Milk-Lab said it was now working on a 30-second analyser and also two ‘embedded version' that could be installed in milk collection lorries and automated milking parlours. These are expected to launch in June 2007.
Uysal said feedback from the UK dairy industry had been very positive so far.
