Dairy is an amazing source of protein, which is an important building-block of healthy muscle, skin, tissues, and blood. Several studies have shown that consuming milk products helps to maintain a healthy weight, most likely because of the protein.
Milk is also a great source of calcium and vitamin D, which is important for building strong bones.
And here’s a fact not many people know — milk has an abundance of electrolytes. For that reason, it makes a great recovery sports drink
For folks like me who live in Central New York, we are lucky to have dozens of local, family-owned dairy farms. With all that dairy, it makes sense to have a production facility in the area. Allow me the honor of introducing you to Cayuga Milk Ingredients.
Cayuga Milk Ingredients (CMI) is a 108,000 square-foot milk-processing facility in Auburn, N.Y. Each day, 2.3 million pounds of milk comes through this facility, all of it from within a 25-mile radius of the plant.
A range of high-quality milk products are produced expediently. From the time that the cow is milked to the finished product manufactured at CMI can take less than nine hours.
As I arrived at the plant, a truck load of milk from a nearby dairy farm came in. The milk is tested for antibiotics and bacteria before it even enters the plant. This ensures that the milk is wholesome and clean when it enters the facility, so that contamination is not possible.
Kevin Ellis, the CEO of Cayuga Milk Ingredients, an operation with 70 dedicated employees, gave me the tour. His and his employees’ attention to detail, cleanliness and high-quality products is off the charts. To ensure superior hygiene, employees and visitors wear booties, hair nets, a smock, and remove jewelry, and are required to wash their hands and change their booties no less than four times when they move deeper into the facility.
Each increasing level of hygiene is strictly adhered to ensuring CMI’s products are of the highest quality.
The way that the milk is processed is very innovative. Much of the production is computer-assisted to help reduce bacterial contamination and human error.
Both dried milk protein and liquid milk products are tested for quality assurance in this facility. The dried milk protein is held in the facility for 8 to 10 days with constant testing and retesting of microorganisms to assure that the finished product is as high-quality as possible.
At any given time, there are 2.5 million pounds of finished products — which include milk powders and various milk protein powders.
I am particularly intrigued by a product known as liquid ultra-filtered milk, which is produced with a high- pressure membrane system. This all-natural low-fat milk has double the amount of protein of standard skim milk and half the sugar.
It’s great to know that high-quality, nutritious, and pure milk products are being produced by right here in Central New York, in cooperation with family-owned farms, where cows are treated humanely as part of the process.
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