DEPARTMENT OF FOOD SCIENCE

FACULTY OF LIFE SCIENCES

UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN

Sensory milk properties at the farm level

the terroir dimension
J.S. Vestergaard *1, T. Kristensen 2, K. Segaard2, W.L.P. Bredie1
1
2

The University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Life Sciences, Department of Food Science, Sensory Science, Denmark;
University of Aarhus, Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Food Science, Denmark; * jve@life.ku.dk

Introduction

The study was performed in 2007 and 2008 during two seasons
(spring/autumn) representing 28 milk samples from 7 organic farms with either
Holstein or Jersey cows. PB feeding regimes were based on pastures with
varying amounts of white clover together with perennial ryegrass and
supplement feeding with silage and concentrates.
Descriptive sensory analysis were performed on the fresh pasteurized
unhomogenized full-fat milk with a trained panel (N=9-10, 3 replicates in 2
sessions). The descriptive sensory data were analysed by ANOVA and PCA.

Variables (axes F1 and F2: 61,53 %)

Observations (axes F1 and F2: 61,53 %)

F-Sour F-BoiledMilk
0,75

T-Bitter
F-Barn
O-Barn
AT-Barn

0,5

AP-Grey

O-Green

Pasture
Legume

AT-Astringent0

0,25

HM-HF-A-08

UGJ-JE-S-07

AT-Astringent20

AT-Fatness
F-Creamy
-0,25

F-SugarSweet
-0,5

HM-HF-S-07
KI-HF-S-07
EMC-HF-S-07

F-Metallic
F-MaizeSweet

AP-Yellow

-0,75

F2 (30,01 %)

Experimental

Exploring selected sensory descriptive data where significant breed related

attributes such as appearance were removed for both years reveals the variation
between seasons as illustrated in Fig. 1.
The results show a greater variation between seasons in 2008 than in 2007. In
spring 2007 the farm milks had in general a more pronounced maize sweet and
metallic flavour, a more bitter taste and a more green odour, whereas the
farm milks in spring 2008 were characterized by a more astringent flavour. In
general there is a tendency to less pronounced sensory characteristics of the
farm milks in autumn compared to spring grazing.
The results of the refined sensory data where attributes strongly correlated to
breed are removed also reveal a tendency to differences between breed (milk
from Jersey cows placed in the upper right corner of the biplot and milk from
Holstein cows placed in the lower left corner). The explained variation in season
and breed is however not clear and suggests complex relationships to
production related parameters.

F2 (30,01 %)

In recent years, the Danish milk market has shown an increase in the
consumption of organic milk as well as a growing variety of milk with specific
features including farm milk. The production of milk from a single farm and
pasture-based (PB) feeding regimes is of special interest as it implies a sense
of place or terroir.
The PB feeding regimes vary with season and might also vary on a day-to-day
basis. It is therefore important to understand the impact of the feed on the
sensory properties of the milk (Croissant et al., 2007).
This study aims at demonstrating how analytical sensory analysis can provide
important information about the influence of breed, season and variation in farm
management from PB feeding regimes on the sensory properties of organic
farm milk.

WB-JE-S-07
OA-JE-S-07
EMC-HF-S-08
EMC-HF-A-08
JP-JE-S-07
KI-HF-S-08
0
KI-HF-A-07 OA-JE-A-07
OA-JE-A-08
HM-HF-A-07
-1
UGJ-JE-S-08
EMC-HF-A-07
UGJ-JE-A-08
JP-JE-S-08
-2
JP-JE-A-08
WB-JE-S-08
OA-JE-S-08
WB-JE-A-08
JP-JE-A-07
-3
HM-HF-S-08

KI-HF-A-08

-1
-1

-0,75

-0,5

-0,25

0,25

0,5

0,75

UGJ-JE-A-07
-4
-6

Acti ve vari ables

-5

-4

-3

-2

-1

Suppl ementary variables

F1 (31,52 %)

F1 (31,52 %)

Fig. 2. Projection of the feed related data amount of pasture in the ration (Pasture) and 'amount of white clover in the grass'
(Legume) to a PCA of descriptive sensory milk data from seven organic farms (EMC-, HM-, JP-, KI-, OA-, UGJ-, WB-) with either
Holstein (-HF-) or Jersey cows (-JE-). Data from two seasons (autumn; -A-, spring; -S-) and two years (-07, -08)

Results and Discussion

Significant results for the descriptive sensory analyses were found as
expected for breed. In general the results revealed a larger variation in sensory
flavour properties of spring milk and milk from Holstein cows. When comparing
the two seasons within each year, a tendency of the milk being characterized as
having a greener odour, sweet and maize-like flavour in spring and a more
bitter taste in the autumn was found (results not shown here).
Biplot (axes F1 and F2: 73,61 %)

Fig. 2 shows the projection of feed related parameters amount of pasture in

the ration (Pasture, varying between 15-89%) and amount white clover in the
pasture (Legume, varying between 5-44%) to a PCA of all sensory data.
Feeding with high amounts of pasture in the ration is found to be associated to
barn-like characteristics (both odour, flavour and aftertaste) of the milk.
Relations to other production conditions such as composition of the
supplement feed might also have an impact on the sensory characteristics of the
milk and is currently being investigated.

WB-JE-S-08
UGJ-JE-S-08
4

KI-HF-S-08

OA-JE-S-08
JP-JE-S-08 AT-Astringent20

Conclusion

AT-Astringent0
F-Creamy

EMC-HF-S-08
HM-HF-S-08

UGJ-JE-A-07
AT-Fatness
F-SugarSweet
JP-JE-A-07

F2 (28,41 %)

OA-JE-A-07
OA-JE-S-07
0

EMC-HF-A-07

HM-HF-A-07
KI-HF-A-07
O-Green

WB-JE-S-07

WB-JE-A-08
-2

OA-JE-A-08
UGJ-JE-A-08

JP-JE-A-08
HM-HF-A-08

UGJ-JE-S-07
JP-JE-S-07

F-Metallic

F-MaizeSweet
T-Bitter

EMC-HF-S-07
HM-HF-S-07
KI-HF-S-07

EMC-HF-A-08
KI-HF-A-08

-4
-8

-6

-4

-2

F1 (45,19 %)

Fig. 1. Biplot (PCA) of descriptive sensory milk data from grazing studies
on seven organic farms (EMC-, HM-, JP-, KI-, OA-, UGJ-, WB-) with
either Holstein (-HF-) or Jersey cows (-JE-). Data from two seasons
(autumn; -A-, spring; -S-) and two years (-07, -08)

A sensory analytical tool can provide important information about the sensory
properties of organic farm milk, reflecting time and place
Seasonal variations appear to be an important factor in the terroir dimension of
milk
The terroir dimension of milk may be more actively used in relation to
communication of the sensory properties to the consumer

Archived at http://orgprints.org/16353

References

Acknowledgements

Croissant, A. E., Washburn, S. P., Dean, L. L., Drake, M. A. (2007). Chemical properties and consumer perception of fluid
milk from conventional and pasture-based production systems. J. Dairy Sci., 90, 4942-4953.

The project Organic Milk of High Quality Development of Production Concepts Based on grazing of the Dairy Cows and Gentle
Treatment of the Milk during Handling and Processing (2006-2009) is funded under the DARCOF III programme by the Danish Government.
The authors wish to thank Carlo Piga and Rosaria Romano for assistance with the data analyses.