Pasteurisers, UHT & the Heat Story
HTST with regeneration is the sector's quiet triumph; UHT and sterilisation are its heavyweights. Where dairy heat goes and what decides its bill.
10 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026
Dairy heat treatment is where the food and drink sector's smartest energy engineering and its most demanding food safety law meet. The temperatures are legal minima, validated and non-negotiable; yet a well-run pasteuriser delivers them almost for free, because the sector perfected regenerative heat exchange decades before anyone called it heat recovery. This lesson covers the three heat treatments (pasteurisation, UHT, sterilisation), the regeneration arithmetic that makes the first nearly free, and the number that quietly decides a dairy's gas bill.