Automatic milking

Federal Dairy Research Centre

Institute for Hygiene and Food Safety

The Institute for Hygiene and Food Safety has to elaborate a scientific basis for maintaining and improving the hygienic quality of foods, particularly of milk and milk products. This encompasses food safety aspects but also the wholesomeness and soundness of a product produced according to the principles of a Good Manufacturing Practice. For foods of animal origin the hygienic aspects have to be considered at all stages from primary production to consumption. As basic foods for sensitive consumers as infants and young children, sick and old persons, milk and milk products are of particular importance.

Appropriate housing and feeding of farm animals, protection of the animals against diseases, an enhanced efficiency and specificity of the treatment of diseases (good veterinary practice) and high hygienic standards are the best prerequisites for primary production to fulfil the requirements of a Good Manufacturing Practice. Primary production implies the dealing with risk potentials, which cannot, or not with the required safety, be eliminated from food by technological processing and treatment. Such hazard potentials need particular measures for raw or untreated foods, which are directly marketed by the producer.

On this background, the Institute for Hygiene and Food Safety focuses on the following issues:

• carry-over of substances from feed via animals to food 
• contamination of milk via the controlled use of animal drugs (e.g. antibiotics) or plant treatments as well as via uncontrollable contaminations of the ecosystem (e.g. dioxins, PCBs) 
• analysis of the health status of the mammary gland, especially with respect to an increasing consumption of raw milk and raw-milk products 
• hygienic requirements during implementation of automatic milking systems 
• development, evaluation and standardization of methods for quantitative detection of spoiling agents as a scientific basis for quality assessment and milk payment systems 
• development of diagnostic methods for an improved detection of pathogenic microorganisms and their toxins 
• epidemiological interactions and ways of contamination in producing and processing companies 
• establishment of a scientific basis for a comprehensive risk assessment of microbiological and chemical substances and risk potentials in foods (interdisciplinary approach)

Address Federal Dairy Research Centre,   PO Box 6069,  D-24121  Kiel,  Germany Tel. 0049-4316091  Fax 0049-4316092222 contact person: Dr K. Knappstein

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