Lightening of milk flavor put down to seasonal cycle

• Source: Global Times
• [08:53 September 01 2010]
• Comments

A customer passes by a shelf of milk cartons. Photo: CFP

Complaints from consumers that the flavor of milk products in the city is getting lighter have been explained by industry insiders as being due to seasonal variations in the grass eaten by cows.

"It is a common phenomenon that from April to November, milk flavor will be lighter than in other months," one insider told Youth Daily Tuesday. "Temperatures are higher and grass is lighter, which has a knock-on effect on the milk. However it will still have the same level of protein."

Many Internet forum users have complained about the lightness of milk.

"I drink milk everyday, for the calcium is beneficial," a consumer surnamed Hu from Changning district said. "But  since summer began, I have found that the flavor of milk has been getting lighter." 

Some Internet forum users suspected that the change in flavor may have something to do with China's new national safety standards for the milk industry following the 2008 scandal that saw dairy products being tainted with melamine as a means to boost their apparent protein content.

The new national safety standard was enacted in June, and lowered two key quality requirements for the minimum protein level of milk. Compared to the old national standard of 1986, the minimum protein content was reduced to 2.8 percent from 2.95 percent. In many other countries, the standard requires no less than a 3 percent protein content.

However, the insider denied that the new regulations were the reason for the change in flavor.

Wang Dingmian, an expert in dairy food, said that fluctuations in the flavor of milk could be down to the variability in the sources of milk. "Each company will use many different milk sources," he said.