Flavoured milk is the milk in which some flavour and colour have been added to make it more palatable. Flavoured milk should contain milk fat percent equal to the minimum legal requirement prescribed for the milk from which it is prepared. The term “drink” can be used when there is a minimum of 2 percent fat content. Nowadays, one can find a variety of flavoured milk in the market like chocolate flavoured milk, fruit flavoured milk and sterilized flavoured milk, which are more popular.

The method of production of flavoured milk involves standardizing the milk to the desired fat and SNF percent (generally 2% fat and 9.5% SNF). It is then heated, homogenized and clarified. The desired amount of cocoa powder at the rate of 1.5%, sugar at 7 to 9% and stabilizer (at the prescribed level) are added to the warm milk for the preparation of chocolate milk.

In the case of fruit flavoured milk, instead of cocoa powder, 0.04% of fruit flavours and colours are added to milk. Milk is pasteurized, cooled, bottled and kept under refrigeration. Popular flavours that are used in preparing different types of flavoured milk are strawberry, orange, lemon, pineapple, banana, vanilla, etc.

Procedure

The milk intended for flavoured milk is tested and standardized for milk fat and SNF contents.

The amount of sugar, flavour and colour required for the preparation of the given quantity of flavoured milk is calculated.

All the ingredients are weighed separately.

The standardized milk is taken into the vat and heated to a temperature to 60°C.

Sugar is added to the milk at the rate of 7-9% and dissolved it completely before filtering.

Then it is homogenized in a two-stage homogenizer at 60°C.

The milk is pasteurized at the standard pasteurization temperature-time combination (80°C for 5 minutes or 65°C for 10 minutes). The combination selected will vary with nature of the ingredients and the characteristics of the processing vessel. After heating the product is immediately cooled to below 5°C.

The required amount of flavour (rose, banana, orange, pineapple, etc) and matching colour depending on the requirements is added and mixed well with the plunger.

The flavoured milk is filled in the cleaned glass bottles and stored at 5°C till consumed.