Researchers at the University of California-Davis report that samples of raw cow’s milk shipped by tanker truck for processing show “amazing bacterial diversity” which varies by season. Their findings were reported Aug. 23 in mBio, the online, open-access journal of the American Society of Microbiology.
The researchers sampled and analyzed raw cow’s milk from 899 tanker trucks as they arrived at two dairy processors in California’s San Joaquin Valley during spring, summer and fall. The samples were analyzed using gene sequencing.
This collection included 229 tankers filled in the fall of 2013 and another 264 and 406 tankers filled in the spring and summer of 2014, respectively. The larger set of samples collected in the summer included milk collected from two sampling dates one week apart.
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