Hello All,
I am curious as to how other dairy folks test their incoming milk.
I am at a small cheese plant, we currently take samples from the incoming tanker and do the following tests in house: antibiotics (prior to unloading), petrifilm coliform, petrifilm APC. We send out milk to an external lab for the following tests: listeria spp, salmonella, staph aureus, somatic cells, IRMA (butterfat), added water.
We have the farm samples that we save in case of a positive result on antibiotics, but at this time we are not sending them out for analysis.
Do you test farm samples or tanker samples? I think we should test tanker samples because I would rather have the information of the milk as it is when we are receiving it, rather than the milk as it is at the dairy farm. When we receive mixed loads (unusual as we mostly make product from our own dairy farm), we are doing the in-house micro tests on the individual farms.
I am just curious as to what other dairy people are doing with their incoming raw milk testing, specifically what tests and do you test tanker samples or farm samples. Do you think it is necessary to test for the bad pathogens or is the coliform test adequate? (At my old job we never tested milk for listeria/salmonella/staph.) Thank you all for taking a look, I appreciate the assistance.
Cheers