The area of research work includes development and standardization of milk products and fortification of milk with indigenous fruits and vegetables, nutritional studies on dairy animals, studies on goat milk, areas related to starter cultures and fermented milk, value addition of milk and formulation of probiotic ice-cream, milk preservation techniques and by product utilization, development of newer technologies for lactose hydrolysis and formulation of new culture media and analysis of detergent potential of certain enzymes of microflora of dairy origin and their effect on shelf life of products.

Research facilities for conducting advanced research in the area of Dairy Microbiology, Dairy Pathogens, Probiotics, Dairy Technology, Novel Product formulation, Dairy Chemistry etc are available at the department of Dairy science. The Department of Dairy Science envisages to convert it as a center for conducting research development and applying new technologies for production and processing of dairy products which imparts improved health, safety, quality and expanded functionalities.

Research Initiatives:

• A study was conducted to find out the fat and SNF contents of cross bred cows in Kerala and to see whether they are meeting the standards prescribed by the prevention of food adulteration Act. In an extensive study covering the entire state of Kerala collecting6829 samples of milk directly from the farmers the following important findings were made. More than 38.12% of the animal produces milk with a fat percentage of less than 3.5.It was also found that 85.17% of milk samples collected from the farmers showed a SNF contents below the legal limits as stipulated by PFA. The average SNF content in cross bred cows in Kerala was found to be 8.2 %.
• Detergent potential of enzymes of dairy micro flora was studied and an enzyme based detergent formulation was developed from the proteases of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P12) and Bacillus cereus (S4). Qualitative assessment of cleaning efficiency of the inbuilt formulation confirmed the supremacy of enzyme based formulation
• Possibility of utilization of whey solids in different forms in yoghurt as a substitute for NDM & also B.bifidum as an adjunct organism to improve the therapeutic value of the product was made. The results revealed that a good quality set & frozen yogurt can be prepared with the substitute of NDM by different form of whey solids.
• The research study on somatic cell count & its influence on the quality of milk in CB cows were conducted& the study threw light on the following facts. The lactose content was negatively correlated with the somatic cell count and TS & SNF showed a negative correlation with somatic cell count. It also elucidated that the increase in somatic cell count adversely affected the yield of milk
• In a research on the qualitative changes of yoghurt prepared from milk preserved by different methods, and in an attempt made to study the efficiency of LP system in controlling psychrotrophs in refrigerated milk, there by extending the keeping quality of stored milk, it was observed that good quality yoghurt can be prepared from milk stored under refrigeration following pasteurization or LP activation. These result also confirmed that LP system could be recommended as a safe preservative for extending storage life of refrigerated milk.
• Development and standardization of various kinds of milk products and fortification of milk with indigenous fruits and vegetables were carried out as a part of research work. The work included quality assessment of Misty Dahi prepared from filled milk, Development & standardization of low fat frozen dessert, Preparation and evaluation of quality of symbiotic ice cream etc.
• Study on the Multispecies probiotic combination on Helicobacter pylori infection in vitro and murine model is currently progressing.