Milk is processed to give you a guarantee of safety and a range of options.

Our milk is put through the same processes as non-organic milk to ensure it’s safe to drink and to give you the range of skimmed, semi-skimmed and full fat.

Pasteurisation

Unless you buy it directly from the farmer, when it’s known as ‘raw milk’, all milk must be pasteurised.  This means it goes through a controlled process of heating and re-cooling to slow down the growth of bacteria and keep it from spoiling too quickly.

Separation and Standardisation

Raw milk that is delivered to the dairy typically contains around 4% fat, contained in the cream. This can vary depending on which farm is collected, the time of year, the diet of the cows and other natural factors. To avoid this variation, and to produce the different types of milk we like to drink (skimmed, semi-skimmed and whole), most milk goes through a process of separation and standardisation.

Milk separation refers to the process of separating some or all of the cream from the the milk to produce the different milk types we like to drink. Standardisation simply ensures the fat content remains consistent over time, by irnoning out the variability of milk collected from the farm.

Whole milk’s fat content is at least 3.5 per cent. This is reduced to 1.7 per cent to make semi-skimmed milk and 0.1 per cent for skimmed milk. Because milk delivered to the dairy is typically 4% fat and we drink mostly semi-skimmed milk (1.7% fat), during the course of the day the dairy will end up with excess cream, which in turn is made into fresh, clotted or soured cream at the dairy.

Homogenisation

Milk is an oil-in-water emulsion. In layman’s terms, this means when milk is left to its own devices, the fat globules separate and bob to the top, creating a thick layer of cream.

To create smooth, even milk, most milk is homogenised. This involves passing it through a small hole at very high pressure so the fat globules break down and disperse. After homogenisation, the milk won’t separate again, which means no more scooping out the creamy layer at the top of your full-fat bottle.

Chilling

The milk is kept at a constant cool temperature to keep bacteria levels low.

Bottling

The bottling process gets under way and each bottle is granted its hard-earned ‘organic’ label, to make it easy for you to identify when you are shopping.  It’s a little known fact that its not just the farm that must be certified organic and go through an annual inspection, but the milk tanker and the dairy does too. This is to ensure they have the procedures in place to keep the transport and bottling process completely separate from non-organic milk.