Milk quality improvement after implantation of good manufacturing practices in milking in 19 cities of the central region of Paraná

Abstract

The milk production in Brazil presents efficiency and quality problems concerning the raw material, reducing its competitiveness. The poor quality of raw milk is associated with faults in handling and milking hygiene conditions, high indices of mastitis, inadequate maintenance and disinfection of the equipment, inefficient or inexistent refrigeration, disqualified workforce, among others. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficiency of implantation of simple, inexpensive and easily adopted Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) on dairy farms. Quality parameters researched were total bacterial count (TBC) and somatic cell count (SCC), which indicates respectively milking hygiene and mammary gland health. Forty six raw milk samples from 19 cities of the central region of Paraná were analyzed, among them, 32 (69,57%) had manual milking and 14 (30,43%) mechanic milking. The implantation of GMP resulted in average reduction of 87,90% to TBC on manual milking farms and 86,99% on mechanic milking farms. Regarding SCC, the average reduction was 33,94% in manual milking farms and 51,85% in mechanics milking farms. The implemented practices had shown efficient in all of the studied conditions of production and installations.