China’s dairy industry faced severe safety and quality challenges in past decades: the absence of essential data for risk assessment, weak safety control technology, and backward quality improvement techniques. The Milk Research Team at the Institute of Animal Sciences of CAAS developed the “Quality and Safety Risk Assessment for Milk and Dairy products” database, which reveals the types of major risk factors in the dairy production chain. The team also developed technical specifications for safety control in the whole production process, whose application has significantly improved the safety level of raw milk nationwide. In addition, the team formulated the first international reconstituted milk identification standard, which has become a potent tool to supervise the illegal use of reconstituted milk in the dairy industry and protect consumers’ rights. Moreover, the team employed green and low-carbon technology for milk processing. These technology systems lead the domestic dairy industry to transform and upgrade from focusing on safety to pursuing high quality. Their achievements won four first prizes of provincial and ministerial scientific and technological progress awards, one grand prize and one first prize of the Great Wall Food Safety Science and Technology Awards, enacted 30 national, industry, and group standards, and obtained 18 invention patents. Nineteen core technologies have been applied as the leading promoted technologies by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China. The demonstration enterprises produced 482,500 tons of high-quality pasteurized dairy products in 2019, accounting for 90% of large-scale manufacturers’ total pasteurized dairy products in China. 

Key technologies for quality improvement of milk and dairy products