What does a lab technician in a dairy factory do?

Question

What are their duties and responsibilities? What equipment do they use? What previous knowledge do they need to have? What types of on the job training is available? Please give as much info as possible. Thanks :)

Answer 1

I am not sure of the level of education required, yet milk samples taken from each tank of milk on the farm is checked in the lab for percentage of water, bacteria count, somatic cells (white blood cell levels) and every truck delivering milk is checked for any antibiotic residue levels.  If a truck is considered "hot", each of the farm samples is checked to determine the farm responsible.  A farm that sends a "hot" load of milk to a processing plant is responsible for reimbursing the plant for the truck load of milk as the truck load must be dumped as waste.  Their may be other tests run for different types of dairy processing but these are the general tests completed for fluid milk.

Answer 2

I would think that a lab technician's main job in a dairy factory would be checking product samples for bacteria counts, from the raw milk to the finished products like pasteurized milk, butter, cheese, yogurt, etc. You would need training in biology and especially in microbiology. I would guess that they would be looking for a college graduate in microbiology, and someone that rally knew their business because a slip up by the lab technician could put them out of business. Just take a look at all of the huge product recalls lately and the costs to the companies involved. A good lab technician might have caught this before they were released to the public, found the source of the contamination and prevented most of the damage.

Answer 3

checks for bacteria and harmful substances in the milk or environment.

Answer 4

FOSS is a company that sells dairy analysis equipment. I know that many places that analyze milk quality use their equipment. Here's a link.

http://www.foss.dk/Solutions/BusinessAre...