Aroma Compounds of Fresh Milk from New Zealand Cows Fed Different Diets

Volatile compounds were extracted from fresh milk produced by New Zealand cows using the newly developed solvent-assisted flavor evaporation (SAFE) technique. The two samples that were used came from cows that had been fed on different diets and represented the considerably different flavors of Northern hemisphere and New Zealand milk. Using gas chromatography-olfactometry (GC-O), 71 aroma compounds were found from the milk extracts, 66 of which were identified. Nearly all of the aroma compounds were common to both extracts, despite the two milk samples having quite different flavors. Only one compound, gamma-12:2 lactone, was significantly odor-active for the extract of milk from cows fed a supplement diet, but was not found for the extract of milk from cows fed a pasture diet. Thus, differences in milk flavor are primarily caused by concentration differences of a common set of flavor compounds, rather than by the occurrence of compounds uniquely associated with a particular feed.