Nestlé UK is one of our closest industry partners. We collaborate on everything from sector-leading food industry education to original research projects.

One such collaboration investigated the means for reducing raw milk supply chain wastage, and its potential to be rolled out across the UK.

The Challenge 

The UK milk industry produces approximately 15 billion litres of liquid milk a year. However, up to 200 million litres of this are wasted, because the levels of casein (a type of protein) in the milk do not meet the needs of the end product. 

Nestle UK wanted to improve process capability and efficiency and enable a range of milk compositions to be processed at their plants. They also had a long-term objective to improve the efficiency of other milk processing activity in the UK.

What we did

Using funding from Innovate UK, we aimed to develop a new milk processing system to optimise Nestle’s supply chain and reduce the levels of raw milk wastage in food production. Working at their Dalston plant, alongside two key dairy industry collaborators, engineers developed a new system for improving milk process control. 

This control system automatically allows for variations of levels of milk solid and casein during manufacturing, which will reduce waste by 8% and energy consumption by 2%.

The Result

This is a research and industry first, with the project successfully integrating complex instrumentation and process into an inline control system. This use of existing technology has provided new understanding of milk processing and insights into the broader sector, through whole supply chain optimisation. Implementing in-line analysis could transform production control in the UK dairy industry. 

Nestlé’s Dalston plant in Cumbria processes 60 million litres of milk to use in the production of its milk powder-based beverages. It’s estimated that this new technology can deliver an energy saving of 190,000 gigajoules (GJ) per year across the Nestlé UK group, and reduce process waste at its Dalston plant, saving the business £250,000 a year. The process will also reduce raw milk wastage by 3% across the whole UK supply chain as a result.

Impact

The project is already resulting in significant savings for Nestlé and the wider UK dairy industry. Globally, Nestlé operates more than 30 dairy factories which can now benefit from the integrated inline monitoring solution, at a cost saving of £7.5 million in total. 

This collaboration has also generated significant data on raw milk composition, along with learnings about how to modify differences in the raw product earlier in the supply chain. This is a great opportunity to support the farming community to manage food and season variants, and create the essential conditions to produce optimum protein levels in raw milk.