Dairy farmers will be trained on clean milk production as processors step up surveillance on milk quality to ensure products meet international food safety standards.
Brookside Dairy said it had rolled out a countrywide training programme on milk quality standards for all its farmers and contracted raw milk suppliers as the fight against adulteration of milk goes a notch higher. Players in the informal sector, such as milk hawkers, have often been accused of adding preservatives in raw milk as they seek to prevent it from going bad.
Recently, an informal sector trader in Murang’a was committed to two-years in jail after his consignment of 500 litres of raw milk, which was destined for the Nairobi market, was found to have been contaminated with hydrogen peroxide, a colourless liquid and an antibiotic which inhibits bacterial growth in the milk hence making it not to go bad quickly. The chemical poses serious health effects on those who ingest it.
Brookside, which commands 45 per cent of the national raw milk market, said all its 160,000 farmers will be trained on clean milk production to ensure only milk of the highest quality standards make it to its processing house.
“Food safety issues form the core of our operations right from the farm-gate through to the processing floor to ensure the products we offer to consumers meet the highest standards of quality,” John Gethi, Brookside’s milk procurement director said in Bomet during the launch of this year’s series of farmer training courses.
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Gethi said clean milk production and handling were key aspects of food safety. Industry regulator, the Kenya Dairy Board has been mounting crackdowns on mainly informal sector players, who handle nearly 70 per cent of all the raw milk produced in the country. KDB has acquired mobile laboratories for random testing of milk.
Brookside, who procure nearly 1.5 million litres of raw milk from farmers daily, said they had put in place a stringent quality testing regime for its suppliers, which include 300 dairy co-operatives.
“We intend to use our dairy training courses to empower farmers on safe handling of milk right from the farm gates to our cooling centres. This will also help reduce post-harvest losses that occur when milk is rejected due to contamination,” Gethi said.
