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Unpasteurised Milk In Europe |
Untreated milk a hot topic in Europe
CBC editorial by Norman Dunn
Farmer-retailers of unpasteurised milk in Europe don’t like the term "raw" which is usually given to their product by health authorities all over the Continent.
English dairy farmer Tom Richardson sells milk – untreated milk that is
– ice cream, and other products to the public. Like others selling
unpasteurised milk, he argues production methods are much cleaner
nowadays and there's no real need to cook the goodness out of the
product through conventional pasteurisation or ultra-heating.
Richardson reckons there’s only a couple of hundred farmer-retailers of
unpasteurised milk left in his country. Authorities in England have
gone so far as to demand that untreated milk be labelled with a warning
that it may contain organisms harmful to health. In Scotland, sale of
untreated milk has been banned completely.
The picture was much the same on the European mainland. But now there
appears to be a growing new customer base for the untreated product. In
countries such as Italy, Switzerland and Austria, much of this product
is sold via farmer-owned vending machines sited in farmyards, on
country roadsides, and in village squares.
One of the pioneers of these automatic vendors is Swiss engineer Alfred
Bruni. He reckons he’s sold 400 of them in his home country in the last
10 years, as well as hundreds more recently to farmers in Italy,
Austria, the Netherlands and Belgium.
Although a niche product, consumer interest in unpasteurised milk is
growing because many people believe it contains a higher proportion of
beneficial microorganisms and vitamins.
Italian dairy farmer Giuseppe Brandizzi says many of his customers say
they’ve suffered intestine problems from drinking pasteurised and ultra
heat treated milk. Brandizzi sells unpasteurised milk in and around
Rome, and reckons that there are at least 200 fellow dairymen in his
country who now concentrate on selling untreated milk from their farms
instead of simply passing it onto the local processor.
Producers of unpasteurised milk hope this trend continues. After all,
their customers are paying up to three times the processor price for a
litre.
For CBC commentary, this is farm journalist Norman Dunn in Ludwigshafen, Germany.
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