Raw Material Natural raw material from alpine meadows – a guarantee of safe and useful products. In the course of its activities “Ashtarak-Kat” CJSC has created a unique system of raw material procurement, which has a number of essential advantages and has become a reliable raw material base for the Company, disposing high quality and safety of dairy products.
It is world widely recognized that the best milk is the one, which comes from the cows, pasturing in alpine meadows on the height more than 2000 meters. In the high mountainous regions of Armenia, in the zone of alpine meadows with their richest greenery, crystal pure water and air, with soil, which has never been cultivated with mineral fertilizers and pesticides, all the conditions exist for getting highest quality milk, saturated with vitamins, indispensable amino acids and minerals. Taking into consideration all this, in 2001 “Ashtarak-Kat” CJSC, having spent researches in a number of high mountainous regions, made his choice on the regions of Lori, Syuniq, Gegharquniq, Shirak, Aragatsotn. Today, already in all 10 regions (marzes) of Armenia, “Ashtarak-Kat” CJSC has milk accepting units, rich with modern equipments. A contract is signed with each farmer supplier. By the way, contracts are signed only with those farmsteads, which have cow herds with the maintenance of norms of animal hygiene, and which are fed exceptionally with ecologically pure fodder. The most important is that both the animals and their living conditions correspond to all the requirements. And the requirements (we may state so) are rather scrupulous. Today “Ashtarak-Kat” CJSC provides the quality of the outgoing milk according to its internal standards, the requirements of which are adequate with the international standards and are sterner than the requirements existing in the standards of the Republic of Armenia. In milk procurement units milk is gathered from thoroughbred herd cows (as that kind of milk possesses higher qualitative and quantitative indicators), which freely pasture in alpine meadows and that is why they don’t experience any stresses. Specialists of the company also pay great attention to the conditions of animal hygiene of the cows in farmsteads. The animals are being regularly inoculated and in that period milk is not gathered from them. All these measures afford to make available the procurement of not only ecologically pure but also safe raw material. Milk, though it is a light colored product, may have its dark features, too. When the consumer buys milk from casual people, especially in the street, he/she has no guarantee that the cow, from which milk was got, is not sick with tuberculosis, brucellosis, murrain, anthrax and other diseases, which can be transferred to a human being through milk. Even in case of an ordinary mastitis, when the cow is being cured with antibiotics, they are accumulated in its milk. Taking into consideration the fact that the microbes in milk are not being developed in a period of only 2 hours starting from the milking of the cow, the Company has created a unique system, which allows to take expert analyses of the gathered milk in a few minutes with the help of modern laboratory equipment (previously not less than an hour was required for that). Afterwards milk is cleaned, cooled and collected in bigger tanks. These tanks are regularly being washed, disinfected and are always ready for accepting milk. The milk is being transferred to the plant which is located in the village of Agarak, (near Ashtarak) in special de luxe milk tanks. Here raw material is again passing under input control, in the result of which its acidity, fat content, content of dry remains and other parameters are being defined. In the framework of the input analyses a microbiological analyses is spent, too. Here, in the factory, the raw material, having undergone a number of technological operations, stops being raw material and turns into dairy products and ice cream,which are well known for the consumers.
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