Processes

Long life milks are heat treated in a continuous flow process through a specially designed heat temperature process plant which super heats the milk under pressure to kill off any harmful bacteria before the milks are passed through hermetically sealed pipelines to the special high tech filling machines. These machines form fill and seal the individual packages in an aseptic environment so that nothing except the processed milk can get into the packages.

These long life milks are made purely by heat treatment, there is nothing added to the milk to give it the longer shelf life. Due to the process of super-heat treatment long-life milks have an extra creamy taste vs standard pasteurised milk, which means you can easily reduce the fat levels in your milk without sacrificing the creamier flavour and texture that you might prefer – just replace pasteurised whole milk with long-life semi-skimmed or pasteurised semi-skimmed with long-life skimmed. Long-life milks can be stored in your cupboard until you need to use them so are ideal for saving refrigerator space – one you need them, just pop in the fridge for a couple of hours to chill.

The fresh flavoured and white milks follow a similar process except that for fresh flavoured milks production, bulk silo milk and skimmed milk is batch mixed with a recipe of ingredients to make the required flavour prior to the flavoured milk mix being heat processed in a similar manner to the UHT process, except at a lower temperature. The temperature range for fresh ESL milks is between standard pasteurised and long life milks and therefore the finished milk packs have to be kept chilled even though they have a far longer life than standard pasteurised milk. Packing of fresh ESL white and flavoured milks is carried out in special state of the art gable top fillers which apply a cap to the individual cartons before they are filled.

Once the milk packs are filled they are collated into cardboard cases to protect them and are then packed onto pallets ready for distribution to the market. The products are held in the distribution warehouses for a few days while a number of specialist sterility checks are carried out by the laboratory. If all results are satisfactory the product is then released to market, with the long life milks being sent through either the ambient or chilled supply chain (depending on product and customer requirements) and the fresh ESL white and flavoured milks being distributed through the chilled distribution route.