The history of milk powder production is very long. The records of milk powder can be traced back to the 13th century’s Marco Polo travels, which recorded Kubla Khan's army with a dried powdered milk expedition.
In 1805, the Frenchman Pamantilenwald established a milk company and began to officially produce milk powder. In the late 19th century, there were 10 patented technologies for the production of milk powder for babies, including 5 in the United Kingdom and 5 in the United States.
However, the real commercialization of milk powder was achieved after the invention of drum drying in the early 20th century (Hunziker, 1949). Since then, spray drying technology has emerged and has been successfully applied to the production of skimmed milk powder. Several improved methods of spray drying techniques have subsequently emerged. Until around 1947, the application of these two drying techniques (drum drying and spray drying) was evenly divided.
Since the 1980s, due to the expansion of the production scale, almost all production of milk powder has been spray dried. Also, other drying techniques, such as foam drying, freeze-drying, etc., have appeared.
In the 1950s, due to the excellent work of Peebles (1956), the first time in the United States produced "instant" skimmed milk powder with significantly improved solubility. This product is a fast-dissolving solution formed by rewetting and agglomerating dry milk powder particles.
In the 1960s, instant skim milk powder was approved and replaced the milk powder produced by traditional spray drying methods on milk markets for some time. However, the instant full-fat milk powder was not developed until the 1970s; better instant solubility was obtained by spraying the lecithin on the agglomerated milk powder particles.
Later, formula milk powder, milk powder for adult, milk powder for the elderly appeared. Formula milk powder, also known as mother emulsified milk powder, is a dairy product that is formulated based on ordinary milk powder to meet the milk nutritional needs of infants. Compared with ordinary milk powder, the formula removes some casein and increases the whey protein; removes most of the saturated fatty acids and adds vegetable oil, thereby increasing the unsaturated fatty acid, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, commonly known as the brain) Gold), AA (arachidonic acid); lactose is added to the formula, the sugar content is close to human milk; the mineral content is reduced to reducing the kidney burden of infants and young children; in addition, trace elements, vitamins, certain Amino acids or other ingredients that bring it closer to human milk. Also known as infant formula.