Analytical methods for the species identification of milk and milk products

The objective of this article is to point out the importance of milk and dairy product authentication with particular focus on the application of analytical methods to detect adulteration.The production of sheep and goat milk has considerable economic importance resulting from the widespread acceptance of traditional cheeses, many made exclusively of pure sheep milk. Fraudulent incorporation of nondeclared kind of milk during technological processing is a common practice that can cause a problem for reasons related to intolerance or allergy, religious, ethical or cultural objections, and legal requirements. Unfortunately, fraudulent substitution of sheep and goat milk with the cheaper cow milk is a common practice and for the detection of mutual adulteration various methods have been reviewed, such as immunological, electrophoretic, chromatographic, and PCR techniques.