What is ESL milk?

Michael de Vrese, Kiel

Extended shelf life milk, prepared by high heating, has been on the market in Germany since about 20 years, without important/major problems. Neither theoretical considerations nor the currently available experimental findings give reason to assume that high heating produces health risks and causes major loss of nutrients.

Only a (small) segment of consumers is able to detect the changes in taste caused by high heating. Nevertheless, the fact that discounters and food chain stores introduced extended shelf life milk in the market on a large scale led to considerable protest from “Consumer protectionists” and consumers. This was in the first place due to the different interpretation of the term “freshness”, the poor declaration of the new products, and due to the fear that ESL milk may displace the classical fresh milk completely. This was the reason why the BMELV in 2009 gave the order to examine the quality of ESL milk. The results of this examination will be presented in the 2nd part of this article.

Keywords: milk, high heating, loss of nutrients, pasteurization, ultra high heating