With the coffee shop industry going wild in the UK, the demand for good quality coffee in the workplace is ever increasing. In a coffee shop you would expect to be given a coffee made with fresh milk as this added to a good quality espresso makes an excellent drink. Most businesses look towards a commercial bean to cup coffee machine to provide their coffee as it isn’t practical or cost effective to have a traditional espresso machine and employ a full time barista. The other question often asked ‘is fresh milk or powdered milk the best option’? Some points to consider are aspects such as hygiene, storage, wastage and the actual cost per cup.
Fresh milk always provides a better milk texture. That’s why we set up all of our coffee machines with the manufacturer’s recommended guidance (along with our own expert testing and tasting) of semi skimmed milk. However, granulated milk has its own key benefits – it makes it much easier to clean the machine. Granulated milk can typically save 15 minutes of cleaning a day. If you have multiple machines, this can be a big time saving.
What is granulated milk?
Granulated milk is made from fresh milk, freeze-dried into very tiny granules, also often called powdered milk. But it’s not the same as coffee whitener or creamer, which usually have added sweeteners, whereas granulated milk is not artificial in anyway or have added sweetness. It’s purely milk that has been dried out.
There has been a vast improvement in powdered milk products in recent years and the invention of Mook granulated skimmed milk means that ‘whitener’ has become a thing of the past. Granulated milk added to hot water in a machine gives a thick velvety milk with exceptional flavour , it’s the closest thing to fresh milk you’re going to get and it’s healthier!
Cleaning
All fresh milk machines require daily cleaning of the milk pipes and storage tanks with a cleaning fluid and this can be required several times a day in warmer weather. A separate milk fridge situated next to the coffee machine will prevent the milk going off but this will need cleaning too which creates extra work for the office staff. If the cleaning is neglected, there is a risk of bacteria establishing in the milk pipes which will clog up creating a headache for anyone wanting a milky drink.
The daily cleaning with a granulated milk option is greatly reduced and usually consists of just rinsing the mixing bowl to prevent any build up of ingredients. All our machines have handy walkthrough, on-screen instructions or we have handy cleaning guides available.
Cost
Fresh milk is expensive and bulky too as each drink uses a lot, for instance when making one hundred 12oz drinks you will require approximately 60 litres of fresh milk, that’s 30 standard bottles of milk and an office of 40 staff would easily consume 100 drinks per day. At the end of each day there will mostly likely be some milk left in the container which is poured down the drain, add this up every day and that’s a lot of wastage.
A case of granulated milk is easy to store, it doesn’t need to be refrigerated and a case will make over three hundred 12oz drinks. Each drink has a measured amount of milk dispensed from the machine and it can be left in the canister for days which means there is no waste. If the packet is unopened the shelf is over 12 months.
