Davis Dairy Plant
The SDSU Davis Dairy Plant is located adjacent to Alfred Dairy Science Hall on the SDSU campus. It processes approximately 15,000 pounds of milk a week. Dairy products manufactured include cheese, butter and more than 20 flavors of ice cream.
Dairy Products
Dairy products sold at the SDSU Dairy Bar are processed from milk produced by dairy farms that are part of the Great Plains Dairymen's Association. Raw milk is hauled from multiple dairy facilities to the dairy plant once a week for processing of high-quality dairy products.
SDSU students process raw milk into finished dairy products such as ice cream, cheese and butter. Dairy products are delivered to all food service venues on campus and other businesses across South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã. Tourists and alumni find the Dairy Bar a favorite attraction during their visits to SDSU. With the assistance of the plant manager and assistant plant manager, dairy students and student supervisors must make process control and management decisions in a real-life dairy processing situation. They are also responsible for the marketing and retailing of all SDSU dairy products. The facility employs more than 20 part-time students.
Inspections and Regulation
The Dairy Plant undergoes quarterly inspections conducted by the South à£à£Ö±²¥Ðã Department of Agriculture to assure that high-quality dairy products are processed and sold. Students have the opportunity to participate in this inspection process.
Training and Education
The primary goal of the Dairy Plant is to train students in processing dairy products. Working in the plant allows students to gain knowledge and experience they cannot obtain in the classroom. Through regulated production of quality dairy products, the students gain experience and exposure to the industry they are studying. Dairy Plant and classroom training encourages students to develop the skills necessary to compete in the job market. As students improve their skills, they gain confidence in themselves and their work. Confidence, along with technical ability, puts SDSU students in great demand for jobs in the dairy industry. The placement rate for graduates has been 100% for over the past decade — our graduates, on average, receive the highest starting salaries of any major in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences.
Davis Dairy Plant Tours
The Department of Dairy and Food Science offers tours to the Davis Dairy Plant to see how our delicious dairy products such as ice cream and cheese are being made!
In addition to its use as a student training educational facility, the dairy plant is available to industry personnel for a wide variety of uses. These include use of the pilot plant for experiments, conducting training seminars and product evaluation. Facilities cost is variable dependent upon project scope and duration. Students often have the opportunity to assist with these programs. Please email the Plant Manager for rates.
Equipment available for research use
- 6,000-gallon silo – two
- Separator – 7,500 pounds/hour
- HTST – 7,500 pounds/hour
- Microthermics unit
- Homogenizer – 5,000 pounds/hour, 4000 psi
- Pasteurized milk tank – 300 gallons
- Cream tank – 600 gallons
- Recon tank – 1,000 gallons
- Breddo Likwifier
- Bag-in-box filler
- Ice cream mix tank – 600 gallons
- Flavor tank – 100 gallons
- Ice cream freezer – 150 gallons/hour
- Batch Ice cream freezer – 40 quarts
- Fruit feeder
- Revel pump
- Ice cream filler
- Butter churn – 400-pound batch
- 500-pound Kusel cheese vat – two
- Cheddar mill
- Cheese shredder
- HCV – 2,500 pounds
- Double O – 1,000 pounds
- Whey tank – 600 gallons
- Process cheese cooker – 30 pounds
- R&D HTST – 5,000 pounds/hour
- R&D separator – teardown – 5,000/hour
- R&D homogenizer
- High-pressure homogenizer
- UF/MF – Batch
- UF/MF – continuous
- RO/NF
- Ceramic MF – batch
- Niro pilot dryer (20 pounds water/hour)
- Two-stage dryer (300 pounds water/hour)
- Falling film evaporator – 1,500 pounds/hour
- Crystallizer tank – 200 gallons
- Pasteurized holding tank – 600 gallons
- Hydrodynamic cavitator
- R&D tank – 300 gallons
- R&D tank – 200 gallons
- R&D tank – 50 gallons
- R&D tank – 30 gallons
- Mobile centrifugal pumps
- Freezer storage
- Cooler storage
- Benchtop crystallization
- Benchtop filter tester (flat sheet)
- HPLC
- Capillary electrophoresis
- Microbiological analyses
- Water analyses – BOD, COD, TSS, TOC, turbidity, colorimetric
- Wet chemistry analyses
- Rapid protein – CEM Sprint, CEM Smart 5, FTIR
- Bentley DairySpec
- Handled – Brix refractometer, pH probe, conductivity meter
- Brookfield Viscometry
- Ash oven
- Vacuum oven
