EFFECTS OF TREATMENT OF MILK BY ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION (UV) COMPARED TO PASTEURIZATION

Abstract

The dairy Brazilian chain changed deeply in last year's with raw milk refrigerated transportation and increasing milk production. To keep the milk quality, pasteurization processes are used, but they could change some natural flavor and chemical properties, that some consumers do not want. Because of this, the ultraviolet technology (UV and UVH mercury amalgam) at different doses for raw milk was studied comparing with milk pasteurization (LP) in chemical, microbiological and sensory in raw milk according IN 62/ 2011 sanitary legislation. It was verified no changes in proteins (p=0,294) and fat milk (p=0,598) in all the treatments. On the other hand, microbiological logarithmic reductions median for Bacterial Total Plate Count were 98,7% (or 2,4 log10) for milk pasteurization, 94% (or 1,30 log10) for UV-1275 and 99,5% (or 2,58 log10) in UVH-2200. This showed that UVH technology was better UV and could be a microbicide agent alternative to pasteurization or with it. UV and UVH treatments were different of LP at sensory tests (p=0,05) and similarity with raw milk. For all, UVH-2200 treatment is suggested to raw milk microbiological reduction at raw milk receiving at dairy companies, to improve raw milk quality during transportation and/or to reduce time and save money and energy to Ultra High Temperature (UHT) treatment of milk.