milk processing

Bruce Almighty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Warwickshire
We are planning to start pasteurising & bottling milk
We have a suitable building next to our tank room.
What would be a suitable floor material ? Is concrete acceptable or would we need tiles or a rubberised type floor. Also we have been advised to use food grade composite panels for the walls, any advice or suggestions please ?
What kind of cold storage would we need ?
We have an instant demand of 200 pints/day but would rather double it & do every other day.
Thanks
 

Ajayrai

New Member
Bruce Almighty, You should visit dairy plant or farm which are already located in your area. It will be more useful for you than any tips because you can live observe machines, workforce, conditions etc.
 

Bruce Almighty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Warwickshire
Bruce Almighty, You should visit dairy plant or farm which are already located in your area. It will be more useful for you than any tips because you can live observe machines, workforce, conditions etc.

Thanks. We have seen the "local" one 20 miles away & it's not quite what we're planning. He milks, cools, delivers so doesn't need cold storage. We've also seen our new to us equipment in-situ, but it has a tiled floor, which we would like to avoid.
 

S J H

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Bedfordshire
Mum and dad were processing upto about 7 years ago, the dairy floor was just smooth concrete and was never a problem, I wouldn't over float it, as it would be slippy then need painting.

Dad must have spent thousands on food grade wall cladding, last year we refurbed a dairy nearby, which was a much larger operation, and they'd just used standard building soffit cladding on the walls.
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
We are planning to start pasteurising & bottling milk
We have a suitable building next to our tank room.
What would be a suitable floor material ? Is concrete acceptable or would we need tiles or a rubberised type floor. Also we have been advised to use food grade composite panels for the walls, any advice or suggestions please ?
What kind of cold storage would we need ?
We have an instant demand of 200 pints/day but would rather double it & do every other day.
Thanks
We have an epoxy resin floor. Walls are the blue pvc sheets often seen on parlour walls. Our first cold store was 15 foot by 8. Soon was too small Now 20foot square. Been going 10 years now and doing between 9000 and 12000 lites a week depending on time of year
Would be happy to show you our set up if you drove North.
Putting milk in bottles is the easy bit, selling it is the tricky bit. You need a USP to differenciate from all the cheap white shite that is on the market.
The big boys are putting 2 litres out for under 80p. There is no way you can go at that on a small scale.PM if you need any more info
 

Bruce Almighty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Warwickshire
Thanks for the advice. Fortunately another local farm wants to give up their milk round as they are now brewing beer ! They sold their cows 3 yrs ago & have been buying it in since then. They are keen for us to take on the rural part of their round. We also have a lot of local support after a simple article in the 3 parish newsletter saying we were looking into it. We do the papers already so it should work together.
We're reckoning on only processing 10% of production initially, will see how it goes. Seen an old boy 20 miles away do it successfully & he only has 20 cows. Also got an old friend desperate to do "local" ice cream, he has a large tourist outlet in Stratford on Avon
http://www.visitstratforduponavon.co.uk/eating/snacks-and-sandwiches
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
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One of the most important thing is staff availability. Someone neeeds to be the main man or woman on processing and that is their no 1 priority. It will not work if you are trying to fit it in between milking and feeding the calves. Talk to your council EHO at an early stage, you need them on side
 

Bruce Almighty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Warwickshire
Yes we are in touch with local EHO who seems very helpful.
I appreciate what you say about staff, we already have 2 part timers lined up as well as wife & sister in law.
Also me & (probably) sister in law need to get hygiene certificates
 

Welsh Farmer

Never Forgotten
Honorary Member
Location
Wales
We pasteurised and bottled our own milk. The floor was bare concrete, smooth but not dangerously so, the walls were all concrete rendered and we applied the same paint that used to be used in the abreast parlour which was a sort of pale blue. I absolutely loved this because the light colour was good to work in, it showed up any dirt or grime and you could give the walls a really good scrub down with hot or cold water containing chemical cleaners and the paintwork stood up to this exceptionally well and always looked clean. I hated tiles because of the grout situation and cracked ones were a nightmare because it took time to replace them.

Brilliant to read you are starting this new project and I would be really interested to follow your progress ..... so regular updates and pictures please (y) Good luck
 
So much depends on the individual you get to talk to at your local EHO, what suits one will not suit another.

Personally for a floor surface I would recommend a sand filled 2 part resin flooring. Our EHO suggested an industrial linoleum, can you imagine what woul get under there in a dairy floor with almost continuous water and milk spillage !!
 
Best of luck with your venture this is great news! Personally,I have moved to organic unhomogenised milk after reading the health benefits. You can do the hygiene certs online now for around £20. Make sure you try to get grants on marketing (if there are any) We had farming connect and RDP in Wales both of which we used - never sniff at any money I never had a problem getting it when we sold meat and have used these grants for our other diversification projects.
 

Bruce Almighty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Warwickshire
So much depends on the individual you get to talk to at your local EHO, what suits one will not suit another.

Personally for a floor surface I would recommend a sand filled 2 part resin flooring. Our EHO suggested an industrial linoleum, can you imagine what woul get under there in a dairy floor with almost continuous water and milk spillage !!

Non slip tiles are going to be the most economical, just got to check with EHO


Best of luck with your venture this is great news! Personally,I have moved to organic unhomogenised milk after reading the health benefits. You can do the hygiene certs online now for around £20. Make sure you try to get grants on marketing (if there are any) We had farming connect and RDP in Wales both of which we used - never sniff at any money I never had a problem getting it when we sold meat and have used these grants for our other diversification projects.

Thanks
I've found on line certification but it's more like £120 than £20, I must search further. I might even get this done while I'm on holiday !
I'm not aware of any grants, I will have a look.
 

Bruce Almighty

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Warwickshire
Pasteurising room is coming along steadily, walls & ceiling getting done this week.

We've been delivering for the existing local round for 6 weeks now & next week we start in our own right using the same bought in milk from 15 miles away. So at least we'll be earning from next week.

We won't start pasteurising our own until sept / oct.

We not planning to homogenise, will it be a problem when people start getting cream on top that they're not used to ?
 

upnortheast

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Northumberland
Pasteurising room is coming along steadily, walls & ceiling getting done this week.

We've been delivering for the existing local round for 6 weeks now & next week we start in our own right using the same bought in milk from 15 miles away. So at least we'll be earning from next week.

We won't start pasteurising our own until sept / oct.

We not planning to homogenise, will it be a problem when people start getting cream on top that they're not used to ?

You need a USP to separate you from the purveyors of cheap white water
We don`t homogenise. The majority of customers appreciate the difference. Occasionally someone mistakes the cream on top for the milk going off. Just need to tell them to shake the bottle. but it has never held back sales.

Interesting that just now our list price and the current bargain prices have never been further apart. We are still picking up new customers. Coffee shops are complaining the cheap stuff does not froth properly in their machines. The big boys service is generally crap.
It`s about doing things better than the opposition and selling the story of your milk
 
You need a USP to separate you from the purveyors of cheap white water
We don`t homogenise. The majority of customers appreciate the difference. Occasionally someone mistakes the cream on top for the milk going off. Just need to tell them to shake the bottle. but it has never held back sales.

Interesting that just now our list price and the current bargain prices have never been further apart. We are still picking up new customers. Coffee shops are complaining the cheap stuff does not froth properly in their machines. The big boys service is generally crap.
It`s about doing things better than the opposition and selling the story of your milk

Organic milk is supposed to Froth better than conventional, because of the better fatty acids caused by forage feeding. If you had a grass based system it could be a USP!
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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