6/7/2018

Written by Jasmeen Kaur

The Dairy Research Institute of Asturias (Instituto de Productos Lácteos de Asturias – IPLA), is a small research institute which was established in April 1990. It is a part of the Food Science and Technology arm of the Spanish Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas – CSIC). The mission of the IPLA is to generate knowledge through scientific research in the area of Dairy Product Science and Technology.  Its goals are to improve the health and wellbeing of consumers, and to strengthen the competitive potential of the CSIC in the food sector. The Institute is also committed to delivering knowledge to society and industry.

For my research project, we collected the whey sample from a local farm and tested it for the microbial load by using different medias. The whole project is based on how the whey can be used in the food industry.  Since the whey is free from casein (protein which causes milk allergies), it can be used as a substrate for bacterial fermentation in the development and elaboration of functional beverages. This is the first time they are working on this project, so it is really important for them and I am very excited to be a part of it.