Milk Industry Unites on Cheese Standards

September 24, 2001

The National Cheese Institute (NCI) again has asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to act swiftly on the issue of including liquid filtered milk in the cheese standards of identity. A breakthrough on the filtered milk issue, which has been pending for more than a year, occurred earlier this month when the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) sent FDA a letter to support the December 1999 petition on the subject from the American Dairy Products Institute (ADPI). ADPI also sent a letter to FDA on Sept. 6 urging swift resolution of the issue.

NCI has supported the use of liquid filtered milk (and not dried filtered milk) in the cheese standards since it amended its own detailed petition to FDA in June 2000. Upon review of the NCI petition in June 2000, and over the past year, NMPF asked NCI to amend its petition to include additional restrictions on the use of filtered milk. These restrictions are not contained in the ADPI petition. With NMPF's decision to "unconditionally endorse" the ADPI petition, NCI now hopes to push the issue forward by giving its support to the language of the ADPI petition, with the NCI petition providing the rationale and documentation to support FDA's action.

"We feel - and have long felt - that the ADPI and NCI petitions are equivalent in their effect," the NCI letter states. "Each would allow use of liquid filtered milk, but not dried filtered milk. We feel that FDA can appropriately adopt the ADPI definition, and use the detailed documentation of the NCI petition for further reference and support." The letter notes that some cheese manufacturers have been waiting to invest in filtration technology until the issue of standardization can be settled.

"We tried to be thorough in our petition and address all aspects of this issue for FDA's consideration. The important thing now is that we move together, and move on," said NCI Senior Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs C. Gordon Brown. "In fact, for the past year we have been working hard to get industry consensus on this issue, so we are relieved that finally there seems to be agreement on how to proceed."

Filtration technology has been used in U.S. cheesemaking for about 15 years under the "alternate make procedures" authorized in the cheese standards; in fact, today much of the cheese made in this country uses filtered milk.

In filtration technology, a membrane is used to remove water or water phase constituents from milk. The use of the resulting "filtered milk" or retentate in standardized cheese enhances product consistency and production efficiencies. Milk filtration also allows for more efficient transportation of milk. Because milk filtration removes the same constituents that otherwise are separated out with the whey in cheesemaking, the finished cheese has the same physical, chemical and nutritional characteristics as cheese made from other forms of milk.

In 1999, when some cheese manufacturers began filtering milk at a location apart from the cheese plant to lower transportation costs, USDA raised the question of whether filtered milk is a "listed ingredient" under the standards. FDA and USDA asked NCI to submit a petition to specifically list filtered milks in the standards and resolve the issue. In the meantime, FDA agreed that the practice was acceptable for many major cheese varieties and agreed not to take any action against plants that use filtered milk.

"Resolution of this issue will be greeted favorably by all parties," the NCI letter states, "as it will legitimize use of a technology that is widely accepted and used by producers and processors across the country."