Dear Siva,
Good hearing from you.
The overall answer to your question is “how much money do you have?” J
The more samples and analyses of your samples, the more visible the variability of some of the nutrients in milk will be.
The content of some nutrients will vary significantly depending on which feed the milking cows have had in the periods before the milking, have the cows grazed outdoors are have they been fed indoors? - so if you want to show the variability in vitamin A (retinol and carotenoids) or some elements (and have the money available), analyse the samples separately – if not, pool the samples.
As you are sampling from supermarkets, I guess all the milk has been standardized, so sub-samples for analysis for some nutrients can be pooled, e.g. for the proximates, while you may want to separate samples for analysis of e.g. retinol and carotenoids, and some elements like iodine.
In Denmark, a quite substantial amount of analyses were made on milk and milk products during the Danish Food Monitoring. You can find some reports (unfortunately in Danish, but with summary and conclusions in English) from the food monitoring under Denmark in Compilers’ Toolbox™ (http://toolbox.foodcomp.info/ToolBox_GreyLiterature.asp). We found seasonal variations as well as regional variation in Danish milk (and products) especially for vitamin A (retinol) and iodine.
A completely different approach for nutrient content in (sweet) milk has been used in Sweden. The Swedish Dairy Association analysed the raw milk (many, many samples) when the milk arrived at the dairies and calculated the nutrient content for the sweet products from the substantial data on raw milk.
You can also find these reports in Compilers’ Toolbox™ (same link as above) under Sweden, look for the author “Helena Lindmark Månsson”.
Stay healthy.
All the best,
Anders
Anders Møller
Borgediget 12
DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark
From: Food Composition Discussion Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Siva Sivakumaran
Sent: Monday, June 1, 2020 01:12
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Fresh Milk analysis from supermarkets
Dear All
How ae you all ?
Please need some advice is it a good idea to sample milk in November 2019 (spring in New Zealand) freeze them, sample again in May/June 2020 (autumn/winter in New Zealand). Then mix 2019 and 2020 analyses as one Food Record or analyse them separately and have three Food Record.
Appreciate your feedback.
Regards and Thanks.
Siva
Siva Sivakumaran
NZ Food Composition Database

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