The role of dairy hubs in ensuring milk security

Have you ever wondered about the process your store-bought milk goes through before safely reaching your home? Well, among many other factors that facilitate this process, dairy hubs play a crucial role in ensuring milk security and availability for all.

In 2002, PRAN Dairy Limited pioneered the efficient and systematic "hub model," where they work at the grassroots level to collect raw milk from farmers, which is then transferred to Village Milk Collection Centres (VMCC). From there, it is delivered to milk hubs and finally towards the factory for processing. At each stage of this process, temperature is carefully regulated and quality parameters are checked.

After that, either milk is pasteurised following cold chain procedures or UHT treated. However, as seamless as this procedure may sound, factors such as the monsoon climate of our country where supply of electricity is also unstable make managing the cold chain rather difficult.

"Taking these factors into account, UHT technology combined with aseptic packaging is preferred," remarked Md Muniruzzaman, Executive Director of PRAN Dairy Limited.

"UHT treatment gets rid of harmful bacteria and the six-layer sterile packaging keeps quality intact at ambient conditions, that too, without the use of any preservatives," he explained.

This helps safeguard food security and availability for people, reduce food wastage, and facilitate food handling and storage.

"Passing milk through the UHT procedure drastically reduces the bacterial count and this system is able to kill some specific germs, which is often not possible via other processes. It is an internationally recognised system that is safe in every way," said Muniruzzaman.