The dairy plant has 720m ², with an installed capacity to process 2500 gallons of milk per 8 hour shift. It has 10 areas where 17 students can be rotated for 4 weeks of module, with the following production lines: fluid milk, yogurt, ice cream, cream, butter, fresh cheese and matured.
Our Dairy Plant has a laboratory for quality testing of raw milk and finished product. In the laboratory, performed test include: standard plate count, coliforms and physico-chemical quality of milk such as fat, protein, density, total solids and antibiotics. This laboratory also provides services to outside producers or private companies for tests that they may require.
The plant has 8 learning areas for the processing of dairy products:
- Receiving area: reception of milk.
- Quality Control Laboratory: chemical, physical and microbiological testing of sensory raw material and finished product.
- Processing area: standardization of milk according to the percentage of fat required for the manufacture of each product. Online pasteurization (HTST), 800 Gal per hour, batch pasteurization (LTLT), 450 and 120 Gal per batch, homogenization of milk in two hours homogenizers 800 and 450 Gallon per hour, respectively..
- Milk packaging Area: packaging of fluid milk in polyethylene (HDPE) gallon and half gallon, and flexible plastic pouches of low density polyethylene (LDPE).
- Cheese Area: there are three cheese vats for processing of fresh and aged cheeses.
- Packaged cheese Area: packaging of fresh and ripened bags in vacuum pouches.
- Ice cream and yogurt Area: processing and packaging of 7 ice cream flavors in 3 presentations. Processing and packaging of 4 flavors of yogurt.
- Distribution Area: inventory management of finished product, shipping for internal and external customers of the plant.
Each year there are areas of research in dairy products in the following areas
- New Product Development.
- Development and implementation of new technologies and quality control plans.
- Development and implementation of new process technologies and production.
- Development and implementation of equipment maintenance plans.
- Economic studies of various products.
- Preservation methods of artisanal products.
The Dairy Plant of Zamorano is part of general learning by doing of third-year and specialized learning by doing of 4th year students of the Food Science and Technology Department. The plant operates with 12 to 15 students of third year, 1 to 2 seniors students, nine full-time employees, an instructor and a plant manager. The third-year students rotate through different positions for four weeks, a period in which they develop abilities and skills in processing dairy products. Students learn about the importance of the quality of raw material as related to finished product and the responsibility to manufacture high quality products for domestic consumption of the university and external customers. The plant supplies of dairy products to the student dining hall, employees cafeteria and Zamoranos MiniMarket. The plant sells its products to external customer like supermarket chains such as, Pricesmart, Walmart, La Colonia, Yip, Más por Menos and other customers in the food service sector.
The plant manufactures around 36 products that expose our students to traditional processing lines such as fluid milk, fresh and ripened cheese, yogurt, ice cream, sour cream, butter and dulce de leche. The plant will host about 8 to 10 research projects annually, of which 2 on average are published in the Annual Congress of the Institute of Food Technologists of USA. Finally, our dairy plant, in most of his lines, has the latest equipment, which positions it as the most modern educational plant of Central America.
