I’ve recently started working at my new job and I love it! It’s a dairy co-op and they produce milk and yogurt using the milk from local farmers. It really is awesome. It’s a lot more rewarding than my past job was and I just feel so at home.
Even though I have no idea what the milk-making process in the States is, I’m sure it’s not very similar to this – save for the pasteurization process. Here’s a day in the life at the Co-op.
Even though I have no idea what the milk-making process in the States is, I’m sure it’s not very similar to this – save for the pasteurization process. Here’s a day in the life at the Co-op.
Lala Bah and Oumou sifting the milk and bagging it. This milk was actually made the night before and is being packaged the next morning. 
Lala is sifting the curds of out the milk to make it as smooth as possible. 
Here are Bolly and Sidibe pouring the morning's fresh milk into the pasteurizing machine. They use gas to heat it up and it takes about two hours to pasteurize. 
Here is Sidibe taking the temperature of the milk to make sure it's finished. 
And the unloading of the pasteurizing machine into buckets. You can imagine the smell of 120 gallons of hot milk. They even filter it at this point to make sure that no debris has come this far.
Here, Bolly and Sidibe empty out the pasteurizing machine getting every last drop of scalding hot milk. The outcome is 4 or 5 large bins of milk.
Here the ladies clean the pasteurizing machine - Lala, Fatumata and Oumou.
After the milk is done, Sidibe adds sugar and stirs two of these bins to make yogurt. It's really good, just not strawberry - yet!
And here is the final product in the cooler - milk is in the clear bags and the yogurt is packaged in professional Suudu Baaba packaging.
Here is it! The only problem - and everyone thinks I'm crazy - is that I don't drink milk here. Maybe I'll wean myself into it. Until the next time...stay cool!
