QUALITY OF RAW COW MILK UTILISED IN CHEESE PROCESSING

Roxana Nicoleta Gavril (Raţu), M.G. Usturoi, B.V. Avarvarei

Abstract
    The importance of food quality and the high requirements of consumers regarding foodstuff safety leaded to an increased demand for high quality cheeses, which is an aliment processed from high quality milk. Therefore, in the current paper we aimed to analyse the quality of raw milk which is processed in one of the most known unit from Botoşani County. To achieve this goal were studied a series of physical-chemical indicators (acidity, density, fat content, dry matter, protein titres) as well as some microbiological ones (CFU/ml, somatic cells/ml, Listeria Monocytogenes/25 ml), values which were compared with firms' quality standard. Analyses were carried out on a number of 10 milk samples, and the results shown very good quality milk. The mean value for acidity was 17.658±0.36°T, variation coefficient being 6.50% fact which shows a very good homogeneity. The fat content obtained a mean value of 3.24±0.07% and for protein titres the recorded values was 3.23±0.13%. Microbiological determinations enlightened a value of 140800±4409.09 CFU/ml and a number of 242200±4637.53 somatic cells/ml of milk. Regarding Listeria Monocytogenes, this one was absent in all samples.

Key words: quality, raw milk, acidity, protein