Pasteurisation was invented by a French Scientist called Louis Pasteur during the nineteenth century. Pasteur discovered that heating milk to a high temperature and then quickly cooling it before bottling or packaging it could keep it fresh for longer.
Today, the process of pasteurisation is widely used within the food and drink industry, and it is the most common form of heat treatment used on milk. Pasteurisation makes sure milk is safe to drink (by killing any bacteria) and also helps to prolong its shelf life.
The process of pasteurisation involves heating milk to 71.7°C for at least 15 seconds (and no more than 25 seconds). Because of the nature of the heat treatment it sometimes referred to as the ‘High Temperature Short Time’ (HTST) process. Once the milk has been heated, it is then cooled very quickly to less than 3°C. The equipment which is used to heat and cool the milk is called a ‘heat exchanger’.
When the milk has been pasteurised it is bottled or packaged to be sold to consumers.
