Co-Authors:
Gollop, N., Department of Food Science, Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, P.O. Box 6, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel
Rosen, B., Department of Food Science, Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, P.O. Box 6, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel
Merin, U., Department of Food Science, Agricultural Research Organization, Volcani Center, P.O. Box 6, Bet Dagan 50250, Israel
Abstract:
About 4 million liters of goat milk are produced in Israel per annum by 35,000 animals. The bacterial quality of the Israeli milk is of major importance, since some sheep and goat herds in Israel are presently considered to be infected by Brucella. This leads to mandatory pasteurization of all ovine raw milk before any processing or use. In the present work the natural microflora present in goat milk before and after pasteurization in the intensive and semi- extensive farming regimes was evaluated. The goat milk produced on the farms which participated in this study is of excellent quality. Nevertheless, the natural milk micro- flora in the milk products is missing, and therefore it is necessary to evaluate non-natural starter cultures based on the natural milk microflora in order to produce high quality authentic goat milk products.