Source: fnbnews.com
With prices of Skimmed Milk Powder (SMP) softening in the international market, major dairy players plan to focus on the domestic market this year, which, in turn, is also likely to witness further easing in SMP prices owing to an oversupply. Weak SMP prices would keep the prices of liquid milk in check for the coming few quarters.
The international market is really under pressure. Actually the SMP price is around 2200/ tonne USD CNF. The recent global decline in SMP prices has prompted local producers to cut back exports from over 1.25 lakh tonne a year to just about 25,000 tonne. These suppliers may keep a lid on domestic milk prices over the next six months or more.
The domestic price of SMP is Rs 170 / kg. It is not likely that international prices of SMP will increase in this year. The SMP price will remain stable in next six months in India.
The domestic price of SMP has declined due to the lack of any new requirement / orders for exports. Further, due to the global trade scenario, the prices of SMP are likely to continue to go down in the global market. The reduction in international price of SMP leads to rejection of milk by dairy industry, which has increased availability of liquid milk in the domestic market.
Milk and dairy products have a long history of use by food manufacturers, the baking, soft drinks, confectionery, ice cream and desserts industries being major users. Milk is widely regarded as the perfect food, containing all the essential nutrients, the carbohydrates, fats, proteins, minerals and vitamins required to maintain the metabolic functions in the human body.
India’s food ingredients market is expanding at a 9 per cent growth rate year-on-year. The factors aiding this growth include changing lifestyle and eating habits, increased per capita income and growing nutritional awareness, which have led to the demand for healthy, nutritious, and cost-effective convenience foods.
Commodity and value-added dairy ingredients
Commodity products Value-added products
Full cream milk powder – Whey protein isolates
Skimmed milk powder – Whey protein concentrates
Butter – Functional MPC
Butter Oil/Ghee – Specially designed dairy ingredients
Cheddar Cheese – Functional MPC and WPC ingredients for yoghurt,
Analogue cheese, Protein bars etc.
Lactoferrin
Colostrum MPC/Immunoglobulin
Proten Fractions
Whey Protein hydrolysates
Caseinates – Probiotics
MPC 70 – Complex Carbolydates
Lactose – Complex lipids
Various Uses of Skim Milk Powder
Skimmed milk powder is widely used by the dairy industry itself, as a medium for propagation starters in cheese-making to boost solids in yoghurts and dairy desserts and in products like cheese spreads. High heat skimmed milk power has a high water absorptivity and its main use is in baking, soups and confectionery and recombined products. SMP is used widely as a food ingredient. For the past several years, the largest markets for SMP have been dairy, prepared dry mixes, confectionery and bakery. SMP can be reconstituted by adding water to obtain liquid milk, recombined by adding water and fat in such a quantity to achieve the desired fat content, or simply used as an ingredient. Its high nutritional quality combined with its versatile and multifunctional properties makes it attractive for many applications such as the following:
Reconstituted Skimmed Milk Powder
As a result of the long stable shelf life, the reduced storage space needed and nutritive value of SMP as compared to fluid milk, it is desirable in many regions with unfavourable climatic conditions and also in certain unusual conditions (e.g. war, earthquakes, epidemics). In these situations, SMP can be reconstituted to provide a substitute for fluid milk. SMP is used in the food industry as a replacement for fluid milk.
Recombined Skimmed Milk Powder
When recombined with water and fat, SMP can be used as a dairy component in place of fluid milk or cream in a number of applications where fluid milk and cream would ordinarily be used.
SMP in Milk Chocolate
SMP also lends a desirable light dairy flavour, helps control sucrose crystallisation (due to its lactose content), and binds water to produce the firm, chewy texture of confectionery centres. The firm structure and increased stability from SMP also allows the confectionery centres to withstand high temperatures and enrobing process conditions. SMP is used to produce milk chocolate for its distinct flavour and smooth milky texture characteristics.
Malted Food Beverages
Malted powders are preferable for beverages in homes and restaurants. The confection industry is also malted. It is also a popular food for invalids. Malted food beverages are rich source of readily available carbohydrates. The cereals proteins originally present are partially digested during the malting process. It is also a good source of minerals salts, vitamins A & B-complex. It together with milk has for long been considered an important health giving diet.
Gulab Jamun Mix
Gulab jamun mix powder is formulated from skimmed milk powder, vanaspati (ghee optional), maida, semolina, baking powder and ground cardamom. Two different formulae have been developed separately for spray and roller dried skimmed milk. Essential equipment needed are ghee melter, dry blender weighing machine and a packaging unit. The product can be marketed in a metallised polyester pouches.
Bakery Products
Commonly used in many bakery products such as breads, cakes, doughnuts, rolls etc. to add nutritive value (flour lacks some essential amino acids and minerals), improve flavour, enhance browning (presence of lactose), and improve water binding capacity allowing the bakery product to remain fresh longer. In cakes, SMP has also been shown to stabilise the batter and improve tenderness.
Milk in Mid-day Meal Scheme
Milk and SMP are rich source of nutrition and required for balanced diet. Many states in India had already implemented the availability of free milk products schemes to raise the nutritional level of school children through encouraging cooperatives milk in Mid-day Meal schemes.
Milk supply has always remained a problem in the mid-day meal scheme. It is not widely used because of the scarcity of milk in rural areas and the short shelf life of milk. Milk powder may make things easier, but it may have slightly lower nutritional value than the fresh milk.
Dry Blend
If a large percentage of sugar is used the low fat or nonfat dry milk can be dry blended with the sugar and buffering salt and then instantised for satisfactory dispensability in hot beverages or other liquids. However, keeping quality is improved if the product contains fat, by drying the sugar or part of it in the mixture.
Dietetic Products
Among the many dry dairy products classified as dietetic the 900 calorie and complete meal preparations have received the most attention in recent years. They provide people limiting their calorie intake a nutritionally balanced food which is consumed after reliquefication. The general procedure in manufacture of such products is to fortify skimmed milk with a protein such as sodium caseinate along with vitamins, minerals and other essential growth factors. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry are but some of the common flavourings which may be added for taste appeal.
Dried Skimmed Milk – Shortening Products
Nonfat dry milk-shortening products have been produced in small amounts for many years. They have been used chiefly by the baking industry.
Slimmers – Protein
100 gm slimmers-protein has only about 350 calories. A drink made of 30-35 gm slimmer-protein mixed with 200 ml skimmed milk or water has a neutral taste. It is well adapted as a meal or in between meal for overweight people because of its filling effect and its high content of essential nutriactive substances.
Dairy Whitener
Dairy whitener has been found to be popular and relevant in those areas of India where access to fresh milk is inadequate. With vigorous marketing for consumers concentrated only in a few areas, dairy whiteners were largely perceived as a standby option in this milk-surplus country. In the consumer segment, dairy whiteners are essentially used for making tea, coffee, homemade sweets and so on. In the institutional segment, it is being used in myriad forms like vending premix, ice creams, and sweetmarts.
Conclusion
In recent years, there has been a lot of evidence to show that the dairy industry has abandoned its former introspective attitude and has come to recognise that product innovation is essential to survival and growth in today’s increasingly competitive world. This change, brought about as a result of commercial, political, socio-economic and scientific pressures, is resulting in the gradual movement away from the concept of milk as a liquid towards one of milk as a first class raw material for the dairy & food industry. Thus the idea of fractionating milk into its individual components and recombining them in different ways, or combining them with non-dairy ingredients to produce new foods, has gained ground, and has now been translated into reality with the emergence of filled and imitation milks, dairy whiteners and new desserts.
For the past several years, the largest markets for SMP have been dairy, prepared dry mixes, confectionery and bakery. SMP can be reconstituted by adding water to obtain liquid milk, recombined by adding water and fat in such a quantity to achieve the desired fat content, or simply used as an ingredient. Its high nutritional quality combined with versatile and multifunctional properties make it attractive for many applications.
Generally in India we use SMP as a commodity but not as an ingredient. You can see there are many applications of SMP as speciality design dairy ingredient in cheese spreads, bakery, dietetic products and health products.
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