History of milk
Key dates in dairy history: domestication of animals, the first cheeses, pasteurization, condensed milk, the separator, the milk bottle, Tetra Pak and UHT.
- c. 10 000 BCEDomestication of sheep
Sheep are estimated to have been domesticated in Mesopotamia between roughly the 11th and 9th millennia BC; by 7000 BC they had reached the Indus Valley.
🐑 Sheep · 🐐 Small ruminants · 🌍 Anatolia and the Middle East
Source: Wikipedia (en): Sheep
- c. 8 500 BCEDomestication of cattle
Taurine cattle were domesticated about 10,500 years ago in Central Anatolia, the Levant and western Iran; zebu were domesticated separately on the Indian subcontinent.
🐄 Cow · 🐂 Zebu · 🐄 Cattle · 🌍 Anatolia and the Middle East
Source: Wikipedia (en): Cattle
- c. 8 000 BCEDomestication of goats
Goats were among the first domesticated animals: they were domesticated in Iran about 10,000 years ago, with the oldest finds coming from Ganj Dareh.
Source: Wikipedia (en): Goat
- c. 6 600 BCEEarliest traces of milk in pottery
Milk fat residues on pottery from Barcın Höyük in northwestern Anatolia date to around 6600 BC, one of the earliest pieces of evidence of milk use.
🥛 Milk · 🧪 Milk fat · 🌍 Anatolia and the Middle East
Source: Wikipedia (en): Yogurt, University of Bristol — первые следы сыроделия в Северной Европе (2012)
- c. 5 500 BCELactase persistence begins to spread
The ability of adults to digest lactose only began to spread noticeably within the last 10,000 years; by one estimate, the European variant rose in frequency about 7,500 years ago. The oldest find of this variant in ancient human DNA from Central Europe dates to 2450–2140 BC.
- c. 5 000 BCEFirst direct evidence of cheesemaking
Analysis of residues on pottery sieves from Kuyavia (central Poland), about 7,000 years old, showed that they were used to process milk, the oldest direct evidence of cheesemaking.
🧀 Cheese · 🔄 Curdling · 🌍 Central Europe
Source: University of Bristol — первые следы сыроделия в Северной Европе (2012)
- c. 2 600 BCEThe Sumerian "Dairy Frieze"
A frieze from the temple at Tell al-Ubaid (around 2800–2600 BC) shows milking and the making of cream, butter and cheese. Sumerian tablets from around 2500 BC describe butter making.
- c. 1 500 BCEKefir grains in ancient burials
Microbial remains of kefir grains have been found in burials at the Xiaohe cemetery (Xinjiang) from around 1500 BC.
🥛 Kefir · 🧫 Starter culture · 🧫 Lactic acid bacteria
Source: Wikipedia (en): Yogurt
- c. 1 250 BCEThe oldest solid cheese
In the tomb of Ptahmes, mayor of Memphis (13th century BC), a jar containing a solidified mass was found; protein analysis showed it to be cheese made from cow's milk and sheep's or goat's milk.
🧀 Cheese · 🥛 Cow's milk · 🥛 Sheep's milk · 🥛 Goat's milk
Source: Phys.org — World's oldest cheese found in Egyptian tomb (2018)
- c. 450 BCEHerodotus on mare's milk
In the 5th century BC, Herodotus described how the Scythians churned mare's milk in wooden tubs, one of the earliest mentions of a drink resembling kumis.
🍶 Kumis · 🥛 Mare's milk · 🐎 Mare
Source: Википедия: Кумыс
- c. 1070 г.First written mentions of yogurt
In the 11th century, Mahmud al-Kashgari's Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk and the poem Kutadgu Bilig were the first to mention yogurt as an everyday dairy food.
🥣 Yogurt · 🥣 Fermented milk products
Source: Wikipedia (en): Yogurt
- 1856 г.Gail Borden's condensed milk patent
Gail Borden received a patent for condensing milk under vacuum and opened his first factory; by 1858 his Eagle Brand was known for its purity and long shelf life.
🥫 Condensed milk · 🔄 Condensing · 🥫 Preserved milk products
Source: Wikipedia (en): Gail Borden, Wikipedia (en): Condensed milk
- 1864 г.Pasteur and brief heating
Louis Pasteur found that briefly heating young wine to 50–60 °C killed microbes without spoiling the wine. The principle was later applied to milk.
🌡️ Pasteurization · ⚙️ Pasteurizer
Source: Wikipedia (en): Pasteurization
- 1865 г.Liebig's infant food
The chemist Justus von Liebig created the first infant food, and in 1867 the first commercial infant formula.
Source: Wikipedia (en): Infant formula
- 1878 г.De Laval's separator
Gustaf de Laval and Oscar Lamm patented a continuous milk separator that replaced skimming cream by hand; AB Separator was founded in 1883.
⚙️ Cream separator · 🔄 Separation · 🥛 Cream
Source: Wikipedia (en): Alfa Laval
- 1884 г.The glass milk bottle
According to the chronology, Dr Thatcher invented the glass milk bottle in New York in 1884; milk had been sold in experimental glass bottles as early as 1878.
🍼 Bottle · 🧑 Milkman · 🔄 Filling
Source: Wikipedia (en): Milk bottle
- 1886 г.A proposal to pasteurize milk
The German chemist Franz von Soxhlet proposed pasteurizing milk; in 1910 New York made pasteurization mandatory.
🌡️ Pasteurization · 🥛 Pasteurized milk
Source: Wikipedia (en): Pasteurization
- 1905 г.Discovery of Lactobacillus bulgaricus
Bulgarian medical student Stamen Grigorov, working in Geneva, isolated the bacterium later named Lactobacillus bulgaricus, paving the way for industrial yogurt starters.
🧫 Lactic acid bacteria · 🧫 Starter culture · 🥣 Yogurt
Source: Wikipedia (en): Yogurt, Википедия: Йогурт
- 1919 г.Danone is founded
Isaac Carasso began selling yogurt in Barcelona and named the business Danone, after his son Daniel.
Source: Wikipedia (en): Yogurt
- 1952 г.The first Tetra Pak carton
The Swedish company Tetra Pak (founded in 1951) launched its tetrahedral carton and installed its first filling machine at a local dairy.
🫙 Tetra Pak · 🫙 Carton · 🔄 Filling
Source: Wikipedia (en): Tetra Pak
- c. 1958 г.Refrigerated tanks on farms
As refrigeration and roads improved in the late 1950s, most farms switched from milk churns to storing milk in refrigerated bulk tanks.
⚙️ Bulk milk cooler · ❄️ Cooling · 🫙 Milk churn · ❄️ Cold chain
Source: Wikipedia (en): Dairy
- 1961 г.Aseptic packaging
Tetra Pak launched an aseptic version of its carton; combined with UHT processing, this made it possible to store milk without refrigeration.
🫙 Tetra Pak · 🌡️ UHT processing · 🥛 UHT milk
Source: Wikipedia (en): Tetra Pak, Wikipedia (en): Ultra-high-temperature processing
- c. 1970 г.UHT milk goes mainstream
After the first industrial plants of the 1950s–1960s, UHT milk became widely available in the 1970s.
- c. 1985 г.Reduced-lactose milk
In the early 1980s, chemist Virginia Holsinger developed a way to break down lactose with fungal lactase; by the mid-1980s Lactaid products based on it had appeared. Valio launched fully lactose-free milk in 2001.
🌱 Lactose-free milk · 🧪 Lactose · ❤️ Lactose intolerance
Source: Lemelson-MIT — Virginia Holsinger, Wikipedia (en): Lactose-free milk
- 1994 г.Oat milk
Rickard Öste of Lund University developed an oat drink in the 1990s; in 1994 he co-founded Ceba, the predecessor of Oatly.
Source: Wikipedia (en): Oat milk