Sanitation practices where dairy products are produced are vital to the quality of the final product.  Many dairy products can benefit from the use of ozone as a disinfectant. Ozone treatment has been proven to be a cost‐effective and eco‐friendly in food processing technology. It can be used in dairies as a gas to steralise the air, or in ozonized water as an effective alternative to chlorinated water.

Ozone has been shown to be an improvement on chemical fogging and UV exposure as an alternative to air disinfection. UV, although being effective, was hampered by shadowing in a factory environment and fogging was shown to be the least effective method of air disinfection.

Ozonated water is as an effective alternative to chlorinated water in the disinfection of dairy equipment. It destroy surface attached bacteria while requiring no heat, and thus uses less energy than sanitising systems using steam or hot water.

Different lab reports show the effectiveness of ozone over routine cleaning methods. Swabs taken from food processing tables, warehouses or areas after normal cleaning with a chemical solution, compared with swabs from ozonated areas show that ozone killed 99.% of bacteria.

“Ozone has been used for the removal of milk residues and biofilm‐forming bacteria from stainless steel surfaces and in milk processing, including fluid milk, powdered milk products and cheese because it quickly auto-decomposes to nontoxic products, thus reducing both the environmental impact and cost. Ozonation has been shown to prevent mold growth on cheese and inactivate airborne molds in cheese ripening and cheese storage facilities. Ozone treatment has also been found to be a good method for reducing the concentrations of pollutants in waste waters.”

A further advantage of the application of ozone in food processing operations is that ozone can be generated on demand and on‐site requiring neither transportation nor storage.

Also,  the cost of running an ozonation system is low because they only use a limited amount of electricity.

 

Ozone in the Dairy Industry

Information collected from the following sources:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0307.12302
https://www.eco3.co.za/ozone_in_dairies.htm