The first edition of Advances in the Microbiology and Biochemistry of Cheese and Fermented Milk was aimed at the gap in the literature between the many excellent technical texts on the one hand, and the widely scattered scientific literature on the other. We tried to present the state of the art in pre competitive research in a predigested, yet scientifically coherent form, and relate it to the marketable properties of fermented dairy products. In this way, researchers could use the book to mentally step back from their specializations and see how far they had progressed as a community; at the same time we hoped that R&D-based companies could use it to assess the utility (or lack of it) of the research output in setting out their research acquisition strategy for product improvement and innovation. In a sense, the first edition could claim to have initiated Technology Foresight in its limited field before Government caught the idea, and it certainly gave the science base an opportunity to display its talents and resources as a potential source of wealth creation, well before this became an 'official' function of publicly funded science and technology. Thus, the first edition was intended as a progressive move within the growing science and technology literature, and judged by its market success, it seems to have served precisely that purpose.

The first edition of Advances in the Microbiology and Biochemistry of Cheese and Fermented Milk was aimed at the gap in the literature between the many excellent technical texts on the one hand, and the widely scattered scientific literature on the other. We tried to present the state of the art in pre competitive research in a predigested, yet scientifically coherent form, and relate it to the marketable properties of fermented dairy products. In this way, researchers could use the book to mentally step back from their specializations and see how far they had progressed as a community; at the same time we hoped that R&D-based companies could use it to assess the utility (or lack of it) of the research output in setting out their research acquisition strategy for product improvement and innovation. In a sense, the first edition could claim to have initiated Technology Foresight in its limited field before Government caught the idea, and it certainly gave the science base an opportunity to display its talents and resources as a potential source of wealth creation, well before this became an 'official' function of publicly funded science and technology. Thus, the first edition was intended as a progressive move within the growing science and technology literature, and judged by its market success, it seems to have served precisely that purpose."

Now in a fully-revised new edition, this book covers the science and technology underlying cheesemaking, as practised today in the manufacture of hard, semi-soft and soft cheeses. Emphasis is placed on the technology, and the science and technology are integrated throughout. Authors also cover research developments likely to have a commercial impact on cheesemaking in the foreseeable future within the areas of molecular genetics, advanced sensor / measurement science, chemometrics, enzymology and flavour chemistry. In order to reflect new issues and challenges that have emerged since publication of the first book, the new chapters are included on milk handling prior to cheesemaking; packaging; and major advances in the control of the end user properties of cheese using key manufacturing parameters and variables. The volume has been structured to flow through the discrete stages of cheese manufacture in the order in which they are executed in cheese plants - from milk process science, through curd process science, to cheese ripening science and quality assessment. Overall, the volume provides process technologists, product development specialists, ingredients suppliers, research and development scientists and quality assurance personnel with a complete reference to cheese technology, set against the background of its physical, chemical and biological scientific base.