From Tanker to Chiller: The Dairy's Day
Reception, separation, standardisation and homogenisation; liquid, cheese and powder sites; and the spring flush that makes dairy intake seasonal.
10 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026
Milk is unlike any other raw material in the food and drink sector: it arrives already cold, already perishable, in tankers whose schedule the cows set rather than the factory, and it is 87% water that some sites will later spend fortunes removing. A dairy's energy story follows that milk from the reception bay to the chiller, and it varies more between dairy types than almost any other sector's does between whole industries. This lesson walks the milk through the plant, introduces the three site types whose energy profiles differ by an order of magnitude, and meets the seasonal rhythm (the spring flush) that every dairy model must respect.