Visit Us at Marybelle Dairy
A Quick tour of our Dairy in Words and Pictures THE MARYBELLE MILK TANKER |
If you are ever on the road between Rendham, Beccles, Halesworth and Walpole you might find yourself either passing or being behind the Marybelle Milk tanker lorry. She is a grand vehicle that holds 10,500 litres of lovely fresh milk. She will collect the milk at 7:15am from cows that have been milked that morning and have it delivered to Marybelle by 8:00am. In a matter of two hours the freshest milk in the county will have been processed and stored in refrigerated bulk tanks ready for bottling. At 10:30am the milk is bottled and put into cold stores ready for collection and delivery to our customers doorsteps and retail outlets. It is very possible that if you have an afternoon delivery, you’ll be getting milk that was fresh from the cows that very morning, something that very few dairy processors in the UK can boast. So when you see our little tanker one morning, be sure to give her a toot on your horn and a friendly wave as she may be carrying the milk for you tea or coffee that afternoon.
WHAT HAPPENS TO MILK DURING PROCESSING? | Once the Milk is delivered to Marybelle it is stored in a refrigerated tank ready for processing. By processing we mean that the milk is pasteurized and then either homogenized or separated depending on the sort of Milk we are preparing. Confusing words? OK, Lets start with: Pasteurisation:When we pasteurize the Milk at Marybelle we heat it between a series of metal plates using steam as a heat source. The Milk reaches a temperature of 72 degrees centigrade and is maintained at that temperature for 15 seconds. The Milk is then rapidly cooled to 2 degrees centigrade, and sent on its way to a sterile refrigerated storage tank. All the Milk provided by Marybelle to their customers goes through this process of pasteurization in order to remove any possibility of unwanted bacteria in the Milk. Homogenisation:This process prevents the Milk from separating while it stands in your fridge. Homogenisation emulsifies the fat particles of Milk into the fluid Milk, which prevents it from separating. Remember even ‘whole fat’ Milk is more than 96% fat FREE. Separation:When you order you Milk or pick it up at the shop, it is available in three main types – Whole (3.5% fat), Semi-skimmed (2.0% fat) and Skimmed (0.1% fat). When the milk arrives at Marybelle from the farm it already contains the Whole Milk fat content of approximately 3.5%. In order to produce Semi-skimmed and Skimmed that whole Milk must be separated to remove the relative amount of milk solids. |
HOW IS THE MILK BOTTLED & LABELED? | At Marybelle we have two separate bottling halls each with one bottling line. In the above images you can see the plastic carton bottling machine. The plastic bottling machine is extremely sophisticated that senses how to fill the cartons to the correct level, it then places a cap on top of the bottle and firmly screws it into place. Before leaving the conveyor belt each bottle is labeled using an automatic labeler (as seen in the picture above) two brushes ensure that each label is smoothly applied and a light adhesive keeps it in place. The labels are very important for several reasons including the issued batch number for trace-ability purposes and the use by date so our customer always receives the freshest product possible. Each bottle receives a brief shower to ensure the thorough cleanliness around the cap etc. We have one Marybelle team member placing the empty cartons on the conveyor at the start of the process and one taking the filled bottles off at the end. Each bottle is stacked into creates and stored in one of our three giant cold stores ready for almost immediate delivery. |
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