After getting up close and personal with the stars of Greenfield’s Dairy in Unveiling The Secret to Fresh Greenfield’s Milk Part 1, we now turn our attention to where these ladies are moving off to.
Slow but steady, they make their way up the steps. Warning, the ending part of the video might not be a comfortable sight for some.
All shall be revealed in the milking area.
The cows were actually making their way to the milking room to be ‘relieved’ of the accumulated milk in their udder. Like clockwork, these cows will make their way to the milking room 3 times a day without being ushered by staff in the dairy. They have all been well domesticated.
I love how they called a row ‘Parlor‘. It sounds like these ladies are going through a beauty regime!
You got to check out how the next shift ladies take over.
The milk process takes around 3 – 4 minutes and they practise a strict No Human Touch Policy.
With the clear goal of obtaining clean milk that’s low in bacteria count, workers need to apply the 4 steps: DIP, STRIP, DRY & APPLY everytime a new batch of cows come into the parlor.
– DIP to sanitize the teats
– STRIP to stimulate milk let-down and check milk
– DRY to dry the teats
– APPLY suction cups
The extracted milk then get pumped down to a room right beneath the parlor.
See how fast milk gets collected and re-pumped out to the cooling cylinder
where it is cooled to 4 degrees immediately.
The milk then travels through these pipes over our heads to
The Milk Processing Zone!
This is where we need to cosplay again. Guess which character I am now.
I certainly did not like this part of the tour. The noise and heat produced by the machinery was unbearable and the intense smell of raw milk made me feel rather nauseous.
But this is a critical step in milk processing, ultra-pasteurization sterilize milk by heating it for an extremely short period of around 1–2 seconds at a temperature exceeding 135°C (275°F) to kill off bacteria in milk.
Before we head off to see how the pasteurised milk is packed for delivery, we were privileged to have a look at the production of Greenfield’s latest product: Mozzarella Cheese. The treated milk was left to solidify into cheese within rectangular plastic containers in ice cold water.
Staff then manually remove the solid cheese bricks out from the containers. At this stage, they looked like floating tofu.
The cheese bricks were then harvested for packing.
You will get dizzy just by looking at the speed at which the cartons of milk travel on the conveyor belt! It’s amazing how the entire packaging process is automated from here onwards.
In order to ensure that the final product was up to mark, there is an in-house lab that does random test on daily produce for quality assurance.
Greenfield’s is one of Starbucks approved facility and supplies fresh milk to Starbucks branches in Singapore. They are also in process to be approved as an ethical sourcing facility. That explains why a coffee brewing machine was included as one of the test equipment.
Once all that is completed, Greenfield’s products will be distributed across Asia – Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan and Cambodia.
One of the key reasons why Greenfield’s Dairy is able to ensure the freshness of its milk is that they own an integrated dairy. They manage their own herd, milk them, process, pack and ship their fresh produce all from one place! This greatly reduces time wasted on transport preparation and the actual transportation process.
For us in Singapore, Greenfield’s milk will only take around 2 – 3 shipping days to reach our supermarket! Hence you can also be assured of Greenfield’s freshness!
To find out more about their range of products, visit their website, ‘Like’ them on Greenfield’s Milk Singapore Fan Page or follow them on twitter @GreenfieldsMilk!
You may also like to check out my posts on other exciting travel destinations here
