From Farm to Fridge
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The tanker
On the tanker
The Black & White tankers you see around the UK are insulated to keep the milk cool. They pick up the milk at each farm once a day and each tanker can hold up to 30,000 litres of milk.
At each farm, the tanker driver checks the quality of the milk and takes a sample. This is tested when the tanker returns to the dairy.
Download the From the farm to the fridge poster [PDF - 3Mb]If you would like to find out more about how your milk gets from farm to fridge, why not visit www.thisisdairyfarming.com for more information.
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The farm
At the farm
Did you know that there are over 2 million dairy cows in the UK?
Cows spend most of their day grazing in fields, eating grass. A cow’s stomach has four separate compartments – each helping the cow to digest the 100kg of grass they can eat every day!The West side of the UK is where most of the dairy herds can be found. This is due to the high volume of rain this area experiences which is ideal for growing grass and for grazing cows! This is why you will find most of our dairies in the West of the country.
Cows are milked at least twice a day, morning and evening, and the milk is stored in a refrigerated tank until the tanker arrives to collect the milk.
Download the From the farm to the fridge poster [PDF - 3Mb]If you would like to find out more about how your milk gets from farm to fridge, why not visit www.thisisdairyfarming.com for more information.
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The dairy
At the dairy
When the tanker arrives at the dairy, we take another sample that is again quality checked before the milk can be transferred from the tanker to large chilled silos. Each of these holds up to 250,000 litres – almost as much as a local swimming pool!
From the silos, the milk first goes to be pasteurised, which involves heating the milk very quickly to 72oC for a minimum of 25 seconds and then cooled to ensure there are no germs in the milk.
The milk is then homogenised, this separates the cream and milk and can then be combined again together to make the different types of milk including whole milk and semi–skimmed milk.
Before milk was homogenised, a layer of cream would separate from the milk and rise to the top of the bottle.
The milk is then packaged into cartons, plastic or glass bottles. All of these are colour coded into the different types of milk, skimmed (red), semi skimmed (green), whole (blue) and 'the One' (purple).
Download the From the farm to the fridge poster [PDF - 3Mb]If you would like to find out more about how your milk gets from farm to fridge, why not visit www.thisisdairyfarming.com for more information.
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The depot
To the depot
Once the milk has been packed, it is loaded into metal trolleys and sent to one of our distribution depots. These are located all over the country and close to major road networks, towns and cities, so that the milk won’t have far to travel.
Our depots store the milk in huge fridges that can hold over 1 million litres of milk.
The milk is then loaded onto a refrigerated Black & White lorry and taken from the depots to schools, shops, restaurants and hospitals, etc., ready to be drunk, bought and taken home to be used on your cereal.
Download the From the farm to the fridge poster [PDF - 3Mb]If you would like to find out more about how your milk gets from farm to fridge, why not visit www.thisisdairyfarming.com for more information.
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The fridge
To the fridge
The milk is then loaded onto a refrigerated Black and White lorry and taken from the depots to schools, shops, restaurants and hospitals etc ready to be drunk, bought and taken home to be used on your cereal.
The journey milk takes from the farm to the fridge can take as little as 24 hours to complete!Download the From the farm to the fridge poster [PDF - 3Mb]
If you would like to find out more about how your milk gets from farm to fridge, why not visit www.thisisdairyfarming.com for more information.
