What does Texture Analysis mean to the Dairy Industry?
Dairy products are unique in that they primarily originate from the same base ingredient. Raw milk iscondensed, fermented, agitated and acidified to create a whole range of products each with unique textures and flavour profiles. Physical properties and sensory texture play a critical role within the processing behaviour, performance and ultimately consumer perception.Instrumental texture analyses combined with sensory expertise are essential objective tools for theidentification and measurement of subjective textural characteristics. From a manufacturers perspective, this could be structural changes during additionalunit operations such as grid, slicing, pumping, mixing and depositing, or through formulation changes. From a customers perspective, this could be an anticipated or expected sensory profile, where a low fat cheddar cheese should still feel like its traditional full fat counterpart or behave in a pre-specified manner, e.g. a production level.
