Household Consumers' Acceptance of an Experimental Dry Whole Milk

Excerpts from the report Introduction: The Dairy Products Laboratory, Eastern Utilization Research and Development Division (EURDD), Agricultural Research Service, has been carrying out research to develop a dry whole milk powder that is manufactured by a foam spray-dry process and that reconstitutes to milk of beverage quality. Sufficient research had been carried out to establish the packaging and storage conditions necessary for commercial use of the foam spray-dried whole milk powder if it is distributed under refrigeration. The dry whole milk had been tested by both trained and untrained taste panels within the Department. Both groups found the product acceptable and comparable to fresh whole milk. Therefore, the developers were interested in consumers’ reactions to the flavor, the residual surface foam on the reconstituted milk, and the time and effort required to reconstitute the milk product. The findings reported on here are based upon personal interviews with 327 homemakers selected by area probability sampling procedures in the incorporated city of Alexandria, Va. , during the fall of 1965. Only private households were selected. As in all surveys where a sample is interviewed rather than the total population, the findings are subject to sampling error. A description of the sample design, sampling method, and sampling tolerances appears at the end of this report.