David Barbano is a professor in the Department of Food Science. Dave received his BS in Biology/Food Science in 1970 at Cornell University and his MS/Ph.D. in Food Science also at Cornell University (MS in 1973 and Ph.D. in 1976). He joined the Department of Food Science as an Assistant Professor in 1980. In 1988 he became the Director of the Northeast Dairy Foods Research Center. He is a member of ADSA, IFT, IDFA, AOACI, IAMFES, IDF, and NYS Assoc. of Milk and Food Sanitarians. Dave received the 1994 AOAC Outstanding Associate Referee Award. In June 1999, Dave was elected as Director from the Dairy Foods Division for ADSA.

Current Research

• Improvement of analytical testing methods for measurement of fat, protein, lactose, and solids content of milk and other dairy foods.
• Influence of mastitis and milk somatic cell count on dairy product quality and yield.
• Factors that influence manufacturing costs for cheese and whey products.
• Improvement of natural cheese quality, production efficiency, and yield through process control.
• Utilization of low concentration factor casein concentrates from microfiltration for cheese making and milk serum protein concentrates from microfiltration in beverages.

Research Interests/Work in Progress

In the area of microfiltration of skim milk, we are determining the influence of low concentration factor microfiltration (up to 2X) on traditional cheese making procedures, composition, yield, and chemical changes during the aging of Cheddar cheese. The milk serum protein permeates from this same research are being concentrated by ultrafiltration and they are being used to determine the impact of casein to serum protein ratio (at constant total protein and lactose content) on the sensory characteristics of fluid milks from 0 to 3.3% fat content. Early results indicate more impact on textural attributes of fluid milk than expected.

Another area of active research is on the influence of added carbon dioxide in milk on the dairy product manufacturing and milk chemistry when used as a processing aide.

My research program has had a history of working on the development of improved or new methods of chemical analysis to measure the major components in milk. Recently, we demonstrated the efficacy of a direct method for measuring the casein content of milk using the Kjeldahl method. This method will serve as a useful reference method for calibration of more rapid testing methods such as FTIR. In the area of infrared milk analysis, we are in the final stages of development of a more robust approach ( both software development and a set of robust calibration milk samples) for calibration infrared milk analyzers for dairy farmer payment and production record keeping testing. Our research has provided the scientific basis for a change in the method of payment for dairy farmers in the US from crude protein to a true protein basis.

In the area of raw milk quality, we have recently completed work that clearly demonstrates that the shelf-life and flavor quality of pasteurized fluid milk is reduced by high somatic cell count of raw milk. Follow-up work is planned to provide a more quantitative description of how many days of shelf-life will be gained as raw milk somatic cell count is decreased. This data will provide the economic basis for fluid milk processors to make bonus payments to dairy farmers for higher raw milk quality.