IDF guidance helps scientists test milk fat purity

The International Dairy Federation (IDF) has issued guidance to help scientists and non-scientists determine milk fat purity, to ensure accurate testing of milk and dairy products.

Most milk and dairy products are composed of milk fat. Alongside its numerous nutritional benefits, milk fat also provides flavour enhancement and desirable mouthfeel to food products. Due to its high cost, milk fat is also susceptible to being replaced by other animal fats or vegetable oils, which affects the quality of dairy products and their reputation with consumers.

“The dairy sector is often required to prove the authenticity of its product against potential adulteration with vegetable oils or other animal fats. By providing this additional background information and guidance, we aim to assist both those who desire to set up the method and those who need a general understanding to interpret the results the method produces,” said lead author Dr Alastair MacGibbon.

The new guidelines, titled ‘IDF Bulletin 499/2019: Guidance on the practical application of IDF/ISO standard on the determination of milkfat purity’, are designed to accommodate regional, seasonal and feed variations in authentic milk fat composition.

The guidance strives to provide background information for scientists performing tests to enable the method to be incorporated into the laboratory. Additional guidance on the interpretation of results is also provided, to assistant managers, customers and regulators, in placing the result in context.

IDF released the guidelines as greater understanding of testing could modernise older test methods used in some regional regulations with this IDF/ISO standard, thereby increasing harmonisation.

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