Recent technologies to enhance heat stability of milk concentrates

Abstract

Evaporated milk is used in many fields due to their various nutritional and functional properties. Evaporated milk widely finds its application in infant food formulas, as well as used for drinking after dilution, for cooking or as a coffee whitener/creamer. Evaporated milk has a higher concentration of milk proteins which leads to one of the biggest challenges that is, heat-induced coagulation due to the denaturation of milk proteins, particularly the whey proteins, and their interactions during the intense sterilization operation that is typically used to ensure a longer shelf-life for these products. As this phenomenon highly influences the product quality and production equipment, it is of great importance to improve the heat stability of the milk-proteins. The present article reviews the recent advances in different techniques that improves the heat stability of evaporated milk.