Learning More About Milk

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31121, 26 July 1966, Page 2

Learning More About Milk

The need for strict hygiene in the production of milk for human consumption has long been known and observed in Britain where today it is said that people are becoming addicted to milk as they are to tea. The increasing popularity of milk as a drink has resulted in increasing scope for workers in the industry, particularly for girls working as junior laboratory assistants in milk factories. At the Farm Institute in Somerset, one of the most important dairying counties in England, a month’s course for girls already working as laborartory assistants was held recently at the request of the Milk Marketing Board and the Central Milk Distributive Committee. These organisations suggested to milk factory employers that their young laboratory assistants would benefit considerably from a mouth’s practical , tuition

under the highly-qualified staff and in the well-equipped laboratories of the Farm Institute. It would increase their background knowledge of the routine job of milk sampling and testing and, by showing them milk production at the dairy farm at the institute, would give them a wider picture of the Industry. The employers were enthusiastic. Although the institute had anticipated receiving perhaps a dozen applications for the first course, it received more than 30 applications from employers who were fully prepared to pay all the expenses of their laboratory assistants. Only residential and laboratory accommodation permitted the acceptance of IS girls on the-first course, as the institute had several other courses running, but the remaining girls are booked to attend for a month in the coming autumn. This year, because the course has not yet been widely publicised, the girls are from milk factories in England, Wales, and Scotland only, but for next year’s courses, applications from

overseas will be welcomed. Commenting on this, Mr B. A. Galloway, senior lecturer in dairying at the Farm Institute, said: "The standard of milk hygiene is rising rapidly in the developing countries, and laboratory workers in their milk factories would undoubtedly benefit greatly from a course such as ours or from similar courses in their own farm schools.” Most of the 17-year-old girls who attended the first course had never bfeen away from home before, but they soon settled down in the student routine, submitted to the necessary discipline and thoroughly enjoyed the social life of the co-educational Farm Institute. They were obviously flattered that their employers had considered them worthy of this extra training and, with out exception, spoke enthusiastically of the useful background knowledge they had acquired. As one girl summed it up for her companions: “It has brought our routine job to life—we now know why we are doing the routine tests in our own laboratories.” The complete syllabus in-

eluded dairying in Britain, the use of the laboratory, quality control schemes, dairying and the law, basic physics and chemistry, introduction to dairy science, use of laboratory apparatus, handling of chemicals used in the laboratory, routine tests of incoming milk, and an introduction to the microbiology, and bacteriology of milk. In addition, the girls received instruction in writing reports and notetaking and in making simple calculations applied to laboratory work. On the final day the girts were given a two-hour written examination, the first hour containing three 20-minute questions on microbiology and the second hour with 40 short questions on dairy chemistry and other allied subjects. The marks of the 15 girls averaged 70 per eent If a girt is sufficiently Interested in her work to continue to study at a technical college, she can take examinations in milk pasteurisation and distribution, and milk processing and control, run by the City and Guilds of London Institute, which will enable her to become a senior laboratory assistant