Microbiological Quality of Raw Milk at Farm, Collection and Manufactory Level in Albania

Milk production has a long tradition in Albania due to favourable natural resources for large and small ruminants and still plays an important role in agriculture and rural development. The total domestic milk production in Albania is currently about one million tons from which cow milk production is about 86% whereas 14% come from small ruminants. Regular testing of the quality of raw milk is a very important instrument for the development of the Albanian dairy sector and to protect the consumer in buying a safe domestic milk product. The purpose of this study was to determine the microbial quality (using enumeration of total bacterial count) of raw cow’s milk at different sampling points received from individual farmers, at milk collection centers points in the villages or in more professional milk collection centres (MCC), in three selected regions Fier, Korce, Shkoder. Average of TBC for samples collected on farms (903 samples) resulted 3.890.000 cfu/ml, on milk collecting center (297 samples) 5.170.000, cfu/ml, at manufactory (631 samples) 3.800.000 cfu/ml. On average the level of Total Bacteria Count (TBC/ml) is much higher than national threshold which is for TBC/ml 1,000,000. Large number of farm holdings, about 85 %, show the TBC level higher than 1,000,000 /ml, only 15 % of samples on farm level fulfil the requirements of Albanian transitions criteria, but are far way with the EU standard.