Large scale screening of milk fatty acid profile: new possibilities for dairy product development

In the Danish dairy industry milk fatty acid (FA) composition has an increasing interest to develop products following new consumers’ trends. Furthermore, FA profiles of the milk have the potential to be used as a management tool to predict eg the energy balance in the cow. The golden standard to measure milk fat composition is based on gas chromatography, however this method is time consuming and costly. Therefore, to be able to provide the Danish dairy industry with routine milk FA composition data, mid-infrared spectroscopy prediction models have been applied since May 2015. [Read more in attached abstract