Twenty years ago, finding pasteurized milk – what we usually call “fresh” – was a fun, if not always fruitful, activity: few supermarkets carried it and you had to leave early to snag one of the few bottles available. When you came across a small shop that still sold packaged milk, you did your best to include it in your weekly itinerary: I still remember a small place near the San Bernardo Bridge in Seville where I stopped had made a pilgrimage.
In the last decade, the story has changed: now all major supermarkets have their own place for pasteurized milk, some carry more than one brand, and we can even choose from whole, semi, skim, lactose-free or organic.
This growth is due to several factors: a greater sensitivity to local products, the perception of pasteurized milk as more natural, the commitment of major retailers to support this trend. But when you talk about milk, you also talk about territory, families and animal welfare: these are five farms that, in addition to producing good milk, also take care of the entire process from the field to the workers.
Milk as before: Granxa O Rosal
“We are already of advanced age and therefore we do not set new goals beyond what we do. But we could opt for certified organic pastures, in fact we already have them without herbicides…”. On his farm in A Laracha, in the province of A Coruña, José Manuel Suárez processes the milk from his cows to later distribute it to individuals, cafeterias and small shops in the area. “We are fighting the big producers with prices below ours. But their quality isn’t the same, they can’t beat us there.” Like the other farms we mention here, Granxa O Rosal controls the entire cycle: “We know how we produce milk from that moment on , in which a calf is born until it begins to give milk. That is our added value.”
La Granxa O Rosal has been around since 1983, but they only made the jump to pasteurized milk in 2017 to celebrate the good work they do with their animals. They are pasteurized at 77ºC and packed in PET bags, which many Spaniards remember from their childhood and which can still be found on small local farms. “We looked at the different options and the bag was the best system for a small business like ours. The cost is more affordable and it is the best system at artisanal level so that the milk is not manipulated”. Its pasteurized – and not homogenized – milk is available in small local shops and cafeterias; If you live in the delivery area, take it home with you.
Granxa O Rosal: Square A Pereira, 1st Erboedo, Laracha (A Coruña). Tel. 617 786 582.
Armengol Farm, tradition and territory
I only knew one thing, or rather two, about the milk from Granja Armengol; It’s delicious and it’s about to expire. Just because the first condition is met doesn’t mean the second isn’t a problem: it’s impossible to stop drinking. Its history begins in 1951 when it was founded by Ramón Pujol, father of the current manager Joan Pujol. The project is family-run: his cousin takes care of the livestock and he takes care of the conversion and marketing.
“We have more shops than farm workers,” he laughs when I ask him about the size of the company. The 16 shops of Granja Armengol, with their characteristic cow at the entrance, might make us think of a large farm, but it’s all very familiar. Creating their own direct sales channel is the solution they found to be able to control the quality of their products, increase their profit margin and not have to give in to the pressure of a large distributor. Having its own showcase has also allowed it to give greater added value to its dairy products, diversifying production to such an extent that it now has 150 different references.
Of the different pasteurized milks they have, all without homogenization, the 78-15 catches the attention of the clientele the most – or at least our coordinator Mònica Escudero, who defines it as “a bomb of creaminess and taste”. The name refers to the pasteurization treatment it undergoes: the milk is brought to 78ºC for 15 seconds and then smashed (the temperature is quickly lowered). There is no one-size-fits-all recipe for pasteurizing milk, but rather a mix of temperature and time that each company adjusts to suit their needs. Put simply, the less the temperature rises, the more the milk’s taste is respected, but then enough time must be allowed to eliminate harmful bacterial flora.
When I ask him how he sees the sector, if it is as burgeoning as it seems, Joan Pujol is not very optimistic: “Over the past 5 years, consumption of cow’s milk has declined for fashion, nutrition and health reasons. Now consumers are looking for a different type of milk, such as goat milk, or are going straight to plant-based drinks.” The data I had access to – the annual MAPA milk survey – only partially supports this opinion: While general milk consumption has fallen since 2016 down 0.06%, but only very slightly. However, pasteurized milk has increased by more than 70%. Well! Good? All that glitters is not gold: Pasteurized milk has increased a lot in percentage terms, yes, but in absolute terms it’s a very small amount. We can put it simply and graphically: if you sell from one liter to two, you have increased your sales by 100%, but you have only sold one more liter.
Farm Armengol: Mas Pujol s/n, Gurb (Barcelona). Tel. 938 862 582. Points of sale here.
New rural projects: As Vacas da Ulloa
Ana Corredoira, one of the members of the labor cooperative associated with As Vacas da Ulloa, made it clear almost eight years ago that pasteurized milk would be her best bet. “In 2015, they called us crazy for trying to defend a project to commercialize organic fresh milk.” As Vacas da Ulloa represents the merger of two cattle ranches, Granxa A Cernada and Granxa Maruxa. Women who frequent the Galician countryside: this could make up a whole article.
Their milk, marketed in Galician under the name Sin Máis (Without More), is the first line of products they put on sale in October 2021. “For us, it was a statement of intent: we have to defend a product, what we have here, we are [Lugo] the most important milk producing region in Spain, the eighth in Europe, but we have seen consumption patterns change and fresh milk disappear from shopping baskets.”
Sin Máis advocates small-scale distribution, where the relationship with the customer is crucial, and calls for a consumption pattern that fits the pillars of his approaches: “Our goal was to convert, package and market our organic milk production and within reach for consumers, reconnecting the rural world with the urban world”. Solid and coherent pillars: “Our production is ecological, it is linked to a territory, to a village, and our way of producing must go hand in hand with sustainability. We defend a model of waste reduction, so from the beginning we established a deposit and return system for our glass bottles, which consumers can return at points of sale.”
As Vacas da Ulloa: A Cernada (Lugo). Tel. 982 096 038. Points of sale here.
The animal above all: the welfare of the cow in Granja Cudaña
“I am surprised that anyone is interested in this topic. Thank you”. My interlocutor is Ivón Entrecanales from Granja Cudaña, who does real educational work in Cantabria by organizing visits and workshops. “Those who visit us are surprised when they taste our milk and learn the differences between pasteurized and ultrasonicated milk. They feel cheated,” he continues. “Because the industry got it into their heads that Uerated milk is better, and as a result, fresh milk almost disappeared.”
Granja Cudaña has been breeding and selecting dairy cows since 1972, but it wasn’t until 2010 that they started marketing their own milk. They sell mainly to large consumers – hotels, canteens, geriatrics – as well as to small shops from eastern Asturias to all of Cantabria. “We had to explain to the hospitality industry how to keep the milk, it seems incredible, but it seems that people have forgotten that it has to go in the fridge.” His formula: 72º for 20 seconds and does not homogenize “because milk is so tastes better”. As José Manuel Suárez of O Rosal told me: “Even if you want to homogenize it, all you have to do is shake the bottle”.
Entrecanales’ attention is naturally focused on the animals. Thanks to his interest in breed selection, he traveled a lot to the United States, where he found a concept that he has been implementing in Cantabria for almost 15 years: Cow Comfort. “Most important are the drying beds because that is where the cow spends most of its time. They must be comfortable and hygienic. After trying different options we found the beach sand. It’s comfortable for them, and because it’s inert, pathogens are better controlled: that way we have a lot less mastitis.”
Another feature of cow comfort is the self-milking cabin. When a cow decides that she needs to be milked, she approaches the cabin: there, thanks to the chip in her ear tag, the sensor recognizes which cow it is and lets her pass if the minimum hours have passed since the last milking. Everything in the cabin is automated: teat cleaning and milking, including milk analysis to detect mastitis in time.
Farm Cudaña: c/ Labarces, 152. Labarces (Cantabria). Phone 639 426 809.
Ganadería Quintián tracing the path to improvement
I had heard about the cow comfort mentioned above, or rather I had seen it with my own eyes, a few years ago, in the facilities of Ganadería Quintián, a small family farm in the province of Lugo. “Automatic milking improves the lives of the cows and the farmer,” comments Julio López. “Of course I have to keep an eye on them, that’s the first and last thing I do in a day, but I’m not as much a slave to the clock as I used to be.”
In Quintián, as in Cudaña, the cows are practically outside: there is of course a roof, and in Cudaña a canopy is put up during storms from the north to protect them from the strong winds. In Quintián, they are more worried about the heat: “Airing is important, the heat bothers them a lot, they get stressed and produce less.” And there are the ceiling fans, which can hardly be heard because there is… music.
“Ours is a life and team project: Julio takes care of the cows from feeding to milk production and I take care of the transformation and marketing,” Chelo tells me. The two of them are on the phone and Julio enthusiastically tells me about the alpine browns that have been incorporated into the Friesenhütte. “It’s about honoring the work of the farmer: we do this by opening our farm to anyone who wants to come and see it, and by controlling the quality and sale of our products. A fair price means decent work and a future for the area.” Ultimately, it is Chelo who perhaps holds the key to understanding all that I have attempted to share in this article: “It is something we do throughout our lives went through, but we had to go back the way our parents offered us real milk again” .
Quintián Livestock: Lugar Friolfe, 2nd Friolfe (Lugo). Tel. 648 195 989.