is believed that the running costs on a cost per sample basis will be lower than those applying to the present quality payment system. I strongly believe that this move will permit more frequent and more useful tests to be made and so pro- vide the milk producer and the buyer with the information

they need progressively to improve milk quality. This will provide the dairy trade with the quality of milk demanded by our highly competitive and challenging market. By this means I hope that we shall be able to expand our sales at home and abroad to the benefit of the United Kingdom dairy industry.

A look to the future of processing

M. J. HAMMOND Milk Marketing Board Dairy, Bamber Bridge

The dairy industry can no longer be complacent, and it must be prepared to invest in new methods to maintain and expand its market. Doorstep delivery must be maintained, but the keeping quality of products must be improved to weeks rather than days. New products, with new packaging, should be developed. Microchip control should be used in all stages of processing, and energy should be conserved and re-used throughout the processing chain.

I am told that 170,000 spectators watched, and much of the world viewed on television or listened to, the perfect landing of the US space shuttle in April. The majority marvelled at the achievement. Despite the f4,000million investment it surely was impossible for a vehicle that had been shot into space to return to earth in the circumstances and conditions involved, in view of all the problems to be overcome.

However, the impossible became the possible, and that was the achievement of a programme that looks continuously to the future. Regrettably, the milk business has been at almost the opposite end of the spectrum and has not looked to the future, so that we are even struggling to sell reasonable quantities of milk to satisfy our business needs. Why haven’t we developed our industry? Why is little happening? I n fact changes are beginning to take place because change is being forced upon us. The time has now come when we must look ahead and plan our strategy for the future, and not wait to be pushed.

The reason we have not planned ahead sufficiently is that the orderly marketing system in the milk industry, and Government control on retail and raw milk prices, have over the years worked to our considerable advantage. They have ensured sensible processing and distribution of milk; they have protected doorstep delivery with the use of a very economic container - the glass bottle, and maintained a high per capita consumption; they have encouraged greater efficiency through dairies striving to beat the costing average; and overall they have enabled milk to remain exceptionally good value (compare it with other commodities, particularly a pint of beer or a loaf of bread -both were once the same price as a pint of milk).

Why, therefore, is it necessary to change? The consumer should be very happy, but she is not. The disadvantages of the orderly marketing system are that consumer organisations are suspicious of the way the system works, believing it to be a monopoly and, therefore, price rigged to give excessive profits; the consumer feels that she does not have sufficient choice; and dairy companies have become complacent and have not taken sufficient advantage of the potential market that may exist.

Dairy companies have been lulled into a false sense of security, not making proper capital investment, and not bothering to market their product or develop from it. They have been sitting back taking life easily and not planning for the future.

We can no longer afford to do that for various reasons, as the consumption of ordinary full-cream liquid milk is declining, and the consumer now demands wider choice. Increased competition at home and the threat from imports require us to take action before it is too late.

Although we need to take other action we must continue to put every effort into maintaining our present doorstep delivery system for liquid milk, providing the sound base on which our future development must be built.

Our two main objectives must, therefore, be to control the price of our products by improving cost efficiency and effective- ness, and to diversify in our market and become more professional in our business approach.

We must discard our old-fashioned, under-capitalised image and take advantage of every bit of modern technology we can lay our hands on. There is no point in such things as the American space programme if we bury our heads in the sand and ignore the technological benefits that derive from such research programmes.

MILK QUALITY Developments in the handling of milk from farms, through processing and packing, have done much to improve the ultimate quality of the product that finds its way into our package. That situation is being enhanced by recent develop- ments in computer control of processing and, particularly, cleaning. The product quality that we provide today is, in my view, quite adequate for the liquid milk consumer’s require- ment, but any advantage that we may be able to derive behind the scenes should enable us to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our business. If we can improve the quality further and, therefore, the shelf-life without affecting the flavour of the product we can smooth out our production requirements and improve transport efficiency. However, it is

Journal of the Society of Dairy Technology, Vol. 35. No. I , January 1982 27

important that we maintain our image of the fresh pint on the doorstep every morning. There is no real benefit in producing and selling UHT milk unless it tastes like fresh milk. I believe there is still economic benefit in marketing and selling a fresh natural product, a product that will have a distinct advantage over stale, imported products. So I emphasise the point that we need longer shelf-life to improve our efficiency. Although we want to maintain delivery to the doorstep every morning, if we can reduce shop deliveries to once or twice a week, we will control the cost of that part of our distribution.

We need to pursue development to find even better ways of handling and processing our product to give us that additional shelf-life. If we are able to achieve this objective so will our European competitors, so we must continue to achieve these objectives as economically as possible. UHT milk must be considered a completely separate market and one that provides greater risk of European competition at prices that may not be cost effective.

THE PRODUCT AND THE PACKAGE Our lives are dominated in this day and age by convenience foods. Certainly, in theory, there can be no food more convenient than full cream milk in a pint glass bottle. It gives all of us at a pour the health and strength we need to live. Unfortunately, the consumer does not sufficiently recognise this, and to ensure that it sells in the quantities that the industry needs to sell, and bearing in mind current declining markets, the product needs to be presented in a form that is more interesting and more fun.

It is, therefore, essential that we pursue research into new products that are attractive to the consumer, enjoyable to eat or drink, and fun for the children. The product must be designed for today's market. We have, of course, already started with skimmed milk, semi-skimmed milk, flavoured milk, yogurt, and cream desserts. Some of these have been successful, others not, but development of these and other milk-based products is necessary to ensure that we can continually offer something different, attractive, interesting, and buyable. The only way to find out whether we are on the right track is to develop a product and test market it. The development must come first; the market will not tell us what it wants without first trying the product.

Those products, whatever they are, however tasty, however good, must be presented to the market in packaging that will sell the contents. Although I emphasise the importance of keeping production costs to a minimum, I do not advocate skimping on the packaging. Our products must compete on the supermarket shelf alongside puddings, sweets, drinks, and so on. The packaging, and the presentation of that packaging, will sell the product initially even more than the product, and even after the initial launch the packaging will make a more- than-justifiable contribution to the sale. It is important, therefore, not only to have an attractive, eye-catching pack, but to have different packaging, different shapes, materials, etc, giving the consumer a choice and possibly even making her believe that she is buying or trying different products when indeed she is only buying different packaging.

As the market will not tell us what it wants without being presented with samples or alternatives, we must experiment and develop to provide different combinations, and convince the market that one or more of those is what it wants. Remember also that what the market wants today it may not want tomorrow, and vice versa.

I opened by referring to the American space programme. I am not suggesting that we should go to that extreme in our development. We obviously have a tighter budget, if nothing else, but I am suggesting that we should continually strive for more diversification of product, and more packaging develop- ment, and shake off our image of being satisfied with what we have had and used for years.

PROCESSING AND PACKAGING COSTS The current labour cost of handling, processing, and packing a pint of milk is a substantial part of the total product cost. We must reduce that cost per unit of milk produced. Processing is certainly becoming increasingly labour-saving through the use of automated systems, now increasingly controlled by the micro-chip. I know that processing for pint glass bottles of liquid full cream natural milk is not very labour intensive, but with the diversification of product and packaging that I am suggesting, life without the micro-chip could get very complicated, and expensive in labour and losses. Diversification will lead to a multiplicity of storage vessels, processing plants, pipe lines, and fillers, and it would be economic suicide to develop such a factory layout that did not utilise the benefit not just of automation, but the latest technology available to control it. But that, of course, is only the start. Why not apply the same principle to the control of packaging and containerisation of milk? I know this involves increasing the size of our capital investment, but we have no choice,

I believe the only reason we have not achieved much in the way of microprocessor packaging control so far is that we do not buy complete systems. When we buy it tends to be separate equipments, filler, tray packer, conveyor, palletiser, all from different manufacturers, whereas a process control and CIP system comes from a specialist as a complete package.

Let us, therefore, first of all convert our bottling lines to computer control, the most important aspect of this being the proper speed synchronisation of the various constituent machines. One or two operators only would then be required to keep general observation. I am told it would not be im- possible to develop a robot that could stand up bottles that fall over on the line. Even I cringe at the thought of the possible capital costs for that, and therefore I would devote more thought to preventing bottles falling over in the first place.

After the computerised bottling line we can then devote some time to planning the computer control of cartoning conveyors from cartoning to palletising, etc, and in the longer term straight into live racking. After all, if the companies that print our cartons can print different packing on different lines, then collate them all in one room and palletise and store them with limited labour, I am sure we can operate a similar system when we fill that same package.

Although none of us wants to see any redundancy through the introduction of microprocessor-controlled systems, we do want to see the development of alternative milks and products, and a range of packaging, and an overall increase in volume handled, all by a staff no greater than our current levels. That is, we need increased flexibility of product and container, and increased volume with the same labour cost.

ENERGY CONSERVATION Without doubt the cost of energy used in a dairy in the future will escalate owing to the multiplicity of processes being carried out, the general world price increase of energy, and the political pressure being exerted financially on energy sources through taxation. All these factors add to the need not just for improved control on energy consumption and energy management, but for lateral thinking on the way energy should be used.

Consider the areas that are costly and could be improved. Water utilisation is one such area, and water recovery is well worthwhile unless you are lucky enough to have your own borehole. A water recovery system can save substantial sums of money, and the systems now available provide a fully acceptable treated water. However, to me the important aspect of water recovery is that the water recovered is hot. Take the heat out of that water by means of heat pumps, and use that heat for duties in the dairy, and a further saving is achieved.

28 Journal of ihe Socieiy of Dairy Technology. Vol. 35, No. I , January 1982

It is also possible to utilise the heat from boiler flues to heat the water going into the boiler and improve the efficiency of the boiler operation itself. Why use steam coils for feedwater preheat when it can be achieved in other ways almost for nothing?

But consider the whole concept of our business. We use energy to heat up the product during processing and we use energy to heat water for washing bottles, crates, etc. We use energy for cooling our product after processing, or some- times to cool incoming milk, and we use energy to cool our cold stores to store those products. Why not put all that together? After all, car manufacturers use energy to cool the engine of a car, and they also use energy to provide warmth for the driver and passengers; but they use the same energy to do the two jobs by using water to cool the engine and then taking the heat from that water to heat the passengers. We, in the dairy industry, use 90 per cent regeneration pasteurising plants. Why do we confine our thinking only to pasteurisers? In our dairies we could take the heat out of water to produce chilled water for processing, take the heat out of our cold stores, leaving it cool, and use all that heat we have taken out to provide the heat energy for our dairy requirements. All that is necessary is a means of converting that heat from one source to another. It is not impossible, and the only energy cost involved is the cost of running the conversion

system. New energy sources are certain to appear, but I am assured by the experts that they are still far more costly than the oil or gas mainly used today. The important thing is to keep abreast of what is reasonably or theoretically practical and put that into effect, ensuring that advantage is taken of up-to-date technology and that equipment is not allowed to become outmoded.

CONCLUSIONS To sum up then, our processing in the future must be directed in the following ways : - .

Take every advantage of the doorstep delivery system. Produce a complete range of products and packaging to be professionally marketed through every possible outlet. Produce a product that is ‘fresh’ but handled and processed in such a way as to maintain a shelf-life measured in weeks rather than days. UHT milk should also be available for certain markets or to meet competition. Utilise micro-chip control in all possible areas. Conserve energy by capturing the available energy generated in the dairy environment and converting it to the necessary requirements. Continue to look to the future, maintaining a proper level of capital investment and striving to stay one jump ahead of the market.

Personalia M R . G E O F F R E Y B A R

Mr. Geoffrey Bar has been appointed chief executive of the Milk Marketing Board as from 1 November 1981. The appointment follows the retirement of Mr. James Morton earlier in 1981 due to ill health. Mr. Bar’s previous experience has been outside the dairy industry. He qualified as an accountant and joined E. S. & A. Robinson in 1951. E. S. & A. Robinson later became a member of the Dickinson Robinson Group, and Mr. Bar continued with this Group in a variety of financial and managerial posts, becoming assistant managing director of the Group in 1977.

Mr. Bar assumes responsibility for one of the largest dairying organizations in the world, now reorganized into a Milk Marketing Board arm under Mr. Peter Jackson as managing director and a Dairy Crest arm under Mr. Michael Bessey as managing director, the Dairy Crest arm being responsible for all of the manufacturing and product marketing activities of the Board.

Mr. Bar, who is 52 years old, was educated at Aldenham School; he is married with three children. He lists his hobbies as tennis, sailing, music, squash and skiing.

Our Society welcomes Mr. Bar to a new and important job within our industry and wishes him well.

M R . C . S . M I L E S

Members will be interested to know that Mr. C. S. Miles, a former President of the Society, who has been confined to a wheelchair for some years, has recently been in correspon- dence with the Society giving details of his activities. Although he is without the use of his limbs on the left side, he spends two days a week at the local rehabilitation centre making pottery, which he enjoys. He says that with the use of only his right hand he has had a fair amount of success, and recently one of his pieces was shown at an exhibition of work done by the disabled.

Although he has been a long-time supporter of the Society, he wishes that he could attend more Section and Branch meetings, but he finds that not many venues have easy access for wheel- chairs or car parking facilities in the near vicinity.

He says he still sees Stan Stilton, my predecessor as Secretary of the Society, and also Dr. Wright from time to time but he would be happy to see any old friends who have the time to call for a chat about mutual interests. He lives at 135 Long Lane, Hillingdon, Middlesex, and would be pleased to meet friends at virtually any time.

PHFL

SGC

Journal of ihe Society of Dairy Technology, Vol. 35, No. 1. January 1982 29