FOR some Jersey milk the journey is not complete when it has gone from cow to carton. The Island’s dairy industry has branched out into a number of different markets in recent years.
From yoghurt, butter, cheese and crème fraiche to cream and, of course, ice cream, Jersey Dairy products are exported all over the world to places like the UK, Ireland, Spain, South Korea, Japan, China and Hong Kong.
- The soft-mix ice cream is sold as liquid in one-litre tetra packs and is then poured through ice cream machines
- The only flavours sold in soft-mix form are vanilla and strawberry
- Last year Jersey exported 1.2 million litres of ice cream to the UK and Ireland almost double what was exported in 2013
- 1.2 million litres of ice cream makes the equivalent of 18 million ice cream servings
- Jersey will this week be sending 22,000 kilos of butter to South Korea
The ice-cream is particularly popular and more than 95 per cent of what is produced in the Island is currently exported to the UK, Ireland and China.
The Dairy has been producing soft scoop ice cream – one of its most popular products – in the Island since 1990, using the milk from hundreds of Jersey cows at more than 20 farms.
Jersey Dairy, the Far-East and other export countries
The Jersey Dairy brand is well recognised in the Far-East, with more and more products being sent to China via Hong Kong, as the route is cheaper. Almost ten per cent of overall milk produced at the Dairy is sent to Hong Kong, which equates to 22,000 litres of milk per week.
‘All cows are registered in the herd book, they all have to be pedigree, they all have to be milk recorded once a month and we don’t allow cows to be kept inside 365 days a year – and that’s becoming quite common in the UK.’
Milk that is high in fat, particularly the full cream version which is over five per cent, is popular in China as they prefer their milk to be higher in fat.
According to Mr Le Gallais, green, half fat, and blue, semi-skimmed, milk are the most popular in Jersey whereas in China over 50 per cent of what is sent is the high-fat milk, which Islanders will recognise as coming in yellow cartons, because it is ‘special’ and very few people are able to replicate that.
‘We have to get very competitive in the skimmed milk market because that can come from a black and white cow, but the level of butter fat that we are selling, you’d never get that from a black and white cow.
‘We want to be positioning ourselves at the top end of the international market. As you see in the UK the problem with milk uniquely is that the individual farmer has lost the ability to sell a product into a transparent market. It’s not transparent anymore because it’s so competitive and because milk is the first thing to be discounted in the supermarket.’
Jersey ice cream will be the next product to be sold to the Chinese market, with six flavours due to launch in the coming weeks.
Fat – provides flavour, body and texture. The type and content of fat in ice cream is used to classify individual products according to certain regulations. Dairy ice cream must contain a minimum of five per cent milk fat and should contain only milk fat, not other versions.
Sugar and sweeteners – added to provide sweetness and improve texture and normally used to obtain the desired taste of the final product. Sugars control the amount of frozen water in ice cream and therefore the softness of the final product. All ice cream contains some added sugar, as without it
the final product would be a solid block of
ice.
Flavourings and colourings – added to almost all ice cream to enhance the appearance and taste of the product.
Emulsifiers and stabilisers – help bind all the ingredients during the manufacturing process and improve the whipping quality during mixing. Stabilisers are added to almost all ice cream to
improve the texture and creaminess of the product.
Other ingredients – such as fruit or chocolate may be added to provide additional flavour and enhance appearance.
The Dairy organised for an ice cream tasting session for 120 visiting students from Bayi School in Beijing on their visit to Hautlieu School last month.
Overall Mr Le Gallais said the students were impressed with the ‘special creamy flavour’ of the product, which will be leaving Jersey in April and be on sale in leading retail outlets across China shortly after.
Bob Jones, head of marketing and export at Jersey Dairy, said that the ice cream market was very ‘fast-growing’ because the quality of the ice cream using milk from Jersey cows is of such a high standard.
More than 1.2 million litres of soft-mix ice cream was exported to the UK and Ireland last year and it is hoped that exports alone will exceed two million this year.
Production
The production of ice cream involves mixing the milk with a number of ingredients. Each ingredient has a specific function and is chosen because of the effect that it has on the final structure of the ice cream.
Dairy ice cream contains milk fat and non-dairy ice cream contains vegetable fat combined with milk fat. All ice cream will also contain non-fat milk components such as proteins and carbohydrates. Sweeteners, flavourings, emulsifiers and stabilisers are added during processing.
The ice cream is then pasteurised, which reduces the number of non-pathogenic bacteria. After pasteurisation, homogenisation takes place, a process that allows the fat to distribute into as many separate small fat globules as possible. The mixture is then left for 24 hours and during this time all of the dry ingredients are hydrated and the fat is crystallised.
The product is then frozen in a continuous freezer and air incorporation takes place. When the ice cream leaves the continuous freezer at -5 ºC, approximately 50 per cent of the water is frozen. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam that is solid at very low temperatures and it becomes more malleable as its temperature increases.
The final process is to harden the ice cream as quickly as possible in order to freeze the remaining water content. The quicker the product is frozen below -18 ºC the smaller the ice crystals will be in the final product.
Read the first part in this series here
