Milk, as an almost complete food, has been a necessity of infants since their birth. Its balanced nutritional composition acts as a great site for microorganisms. Thus, the threat of its spoilage always persists as soon as it leaves the udder. The preservation of milk has been a concern since the development of humankind to keep it safe for consumption after a while. Earlier development of humans raised the idea of the conversion of milk into different forms i.e. curd, cheese, etc. In the later centuries, the beginning of dairy industry started using various means and technologies to eliminate the contamination from milk and milk products to overcome the issue of shelf life and to assure safety and quality. The heat treatment came in the most popular form as pasteurization and sterilization. However, due to the adverse effect of heat on the nutrition of milk the dairy industry strives for innovation in the process and technology. The current consumer demand for minimally processed, qualitative, and nutritional food makes the application of non-thermal technologies such as high-pressure processing (HPP), pulsed electric field (PEF), cold plasma, irradiation, ultrasonication, ohmic heating, microfiltration, bactofugation, etc. to enhance shelf life of products. In this review article, the role of three major aspects of the dairy industry viz. milk processing, use of additives, and various packaging techniques pertaining to the enhancement of the shelf life of milk and milk products are discussed.

dairy processing; cold plasma; Ohmic heating; ultrasound; high-pressure processing

Our article comprehensively discusses the advances in thermal and non-thermal techniques used for milk processing; (ii) discusses the advantages and limitations of all methods, and (iii) performs a comparative analysis of various methods.