Milky way

Another story to tell today from a field trip to a dairy plant. This course I am in called 'Dairy science' had a plan to visit a Dairy plant in Gavle called Gefle. The course is to help us understand the changes that happen at a molecular level and see what milk processing actually does to one of the most important commodity in human diet. The course was intense with protein and fat chemistry and this trip made it more interesting.

We had to leave in a bus arranged by the professor incharge at 8AM last thursday. Everyone was on time and there was a stop at the city centre to pick up the lot that stayed closer to the city centre. They were on time too. Yes, we are the punctual lot.  The bus reached the destination at Gavle at 10 30 AM. The day was perfect for an outing- sunny and bright as the clouds had their day off. After the lovely drive there, we were welcomed with a small wait to get the guide ready for us. There was a massage chair at the waiting point which was brilliant.

We were then escorted to a presentation room for a small presentation about the history of the plant and what they did there. We also had a very nice breakfast arranged for us as seen in the picture to the left. A nice ham cheese sandwich, coffee, juice and an assortment of tasty yoghurts in cups. I am lactose intolerant so I traded my yoghurt for an extra sandwich ;)




The guide was comfortable in speaking Swedish so our professor did the translation to english. Pictures from here on will show the site tour best.

A quick change into site safety attire was what we did next. We resembled the tourists on 'Maid of the Mist' tourists by the Niagara Falls. We loved posing silly for pictures in them. the caps was an addition to the kinky look. Much to my surprise, we were allowed to chew gum and take pictures inside the plant. That could have been a big GMP fail, I thought to myself.

Fermentors that held copious amounts of milk substrate to make delicious youghurt. I must say the hygiene at a setup like this is practically spotless. The lustrous fermentors and the walls and floor reeked of cleanliness.

The geezer was more than happy to show the insides of a batch fermentor. The smell was suprisingly pleasant.

On the right hand side of the picture on the left is a Bactofuge that seperates spores of certain bacteria from milk to prevent latent fermentation. The noise from surrounding machines was so loud that one could shout at the top of his lungs and still sound like a crazy mute. Luckily, I am great at lip reading...NOT.

This is a homogeniser which essentially breaks large fat molecules to smaller even ones improving its taste and texture. Makes hell of a noise.

A routine sampling session for microbial and compositional analysis.

While some are engrossed in looking at machinery, Uta and Ally show off being the goofs they are.  Anton on the left can't help but look at them play silly.

The tour went on to show us packaging of the processed full fat milk. Yum! While our professor, Mr Anders ( in the back) is trying to show us the wonder of spray painting of use by dates on individual cartons, the Czech girls Adela and Martina take time to pose for the picture. Girls, eh?

Then to where they packed Creme fraiche. Over there, the machines made chronic beats that could be used in the next Gorillaz album. Renee, Anton and myself tried to think of nice drum and bass tune to the working machine beats.

That was it. Then we walked through a long passage underground to our presentation room to say our thanks and take our souvenirs with us. The souvenirs were trolley tokens, a cookbook and a mechanical pencil.


We had our fun on the busride back to Uppsala.

In all, everyone loved the Milky way