Designer milks for the new millennium

Milk is an inherently expensive raw material for use as a food. To compete in the new millennium, dairy products will need to be based on special valu es that can only come from milk. These include traditional dairy products a nd health-giving products. Designer milks will be needed to give new, enhan ced products and to improve the quality and value of traditional products. The use of milk for traditional products is likely to continue to be strong in western cultures. For these products, key issues are naturalness of sup ply, with "organic" milk being an important issue, and low-fat products, wh ich may imply a need for lower fat milk. Health products are the most excit ing new area for milk-based products. A number of components in milk are be ing recognised as conferring health benefits. These include minerals (calci um), peptides derived from milk proteins (ACE inhibitor peptide) and lipid components (conjugated linoleic acid). A number of harmful effects have bee n attributed to milk, often by groups with a vested interest, and often bas ed on dubious data. We have investigated claims relating to diabetes, ischa emic heart disease and hypercholesterolaemia and been unable to substantiat e any harmful effect. Designer milks that are improved raw materials can be approached through various combinations of genetics (including traditional genetics, marker-assisted selection and genetic modification of dairy catt le) and by farm and feed management. Examples are presented. (C) 2001 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.