Hello,

In Mauritania, fermented milk in pouches has been produced and sold since the eighties including 1/8 litre ones.  However, the dairies currently making these small pouches all use imported milk powder and no doubt imported starter culture.

Our dairy, Tiviski, first attempted to produce traditional fermented milk, using fresh pasteurized camel or cow milk and local traditionally fermented milk as a starter culture (because the flavor is so good). We bought a nice new little goat skin, specially treated for milk, and tried to use the traditional stuff to make our own starter.  We quickly found that the cartons we were packaging the cultured milk in swelled up like balloons. The same would have happened with pouches of course.

We figured out that the problem was that some of the micro-organisms involved in the traditional method, which give the particular aroma to milk in each part of the world, generate gas.  Besides, they are unpredictable and it is very difficult to keep a constant flavour and to prevent the milk from going wrong during its shelf life.

We had to fall back on commercial starter cultures imported from Europe, which do not have the lovely aroma, but are regular, reliable, controllable, uncontaminated, and enable us to sell fermented milk in cartons (or pouches) with a 20-day shelf life (refrigerated of course).  Consumers seem quite happy with the flavor, which is actually very pleasant.

We also found that although we started selling fermented milk in pouches, our consumers hated them so much that they were willing to pay more for small 1/4 litre cartons.

It would be interesting to know how Ches Dairies manages to prevent the pouches from looking like balloons - and from leaking when they inflate like that, particularly as the milk does not even seem to be pasteurised.  Maybe they are designed to be sold within 24 hours, which is fine as long as demand exceeds supply, but it carries the risk of seeing spoiled milk otherwise.

Best regards

Nancy Abeiderrahmane
www.tiviski.com<http://www.tiviski.com>
Mauritania







Le 19 févr. 2013 à 11:04, FAO-Dairy-Outlook a écrit :

Dear all

You may be interested in reading the attached newspaper clipping from Kenya (The Standard, 19 February 2013) titled, "Dairy firm takes popular mursik to shops".

The story is about Ches Dairies, the first dairy company in Kenya to market traditionally fermented milk products. Mursik is a traditional sour milk product of the Kalenjin community in Kenya. The traditional way of making mursik involves spontaneous fermentation of the milk in a gourd through the action of mixed microflora. Ches Dairies is marketing mursik in plastic pouches that are now commonly used in Kenya to package liquid milk.

Regards

Tezira

TEZIRA LORE
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)
www.ilri.org<http://www.ilri.org/>

<20130219-TheStandard-Dairy firm takes popular mursik to shops.jpg>


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