Fonterra wins innovation award for Milk Fingerprinting development
Last week, the Fonterra Research and Development Centre won the Innovation Excellence in Research Award at the New Zealand Innovators Awards for its development of Milk Fingerprinting.
Fonterra's test uses “light analysis and sophisticated computing” to “ensure a safe supply of milk and reduces the time and cost of testing.”
"Milk Fingerprinting means instead of some tests taking days or weeks we can test hundreds of samples in seconds, cutting processing times and cost,” said Jeremy Hill, chief science and technology officer, Fonterra.
“However, its benefits go far beyond ensuring a quality, safe supply of dairy nutrition."
"The composition of milk varies seasonally, and between farms and regions. This means milk from one of our farms may be better-suited to one specific product rather than another,” he said.
This, Hill added, means Fonterra "will get the most value out of every drop."
So how do you finger print milk? We figured it out, and won an innovation award for it: https://t.co/WQOWMNfXG2pic.twitter.com/bZaoVGpbyg
— Fonterra (@Fonterra) October 22, 2015Milk Fingerprinting was partially funded by Transforming the Dairy Value Chain – a Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) between the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI), Fonterra and DairyNZ.
In November 2012, Fonterra and Arla Foods joined forces with Danish analytical solutions provider, Foss, to develop a screening method to determine whether milk had been tampered with for financial gain.
They said the screening technique would be trialed at a Mengniu facility in China.
