Introduction
It is well known that milk and dairy products
are indispensable components of the food supply
chain since milk is an excellent source of nutrients
for humans. Therefore, the total annual worldwide
milk production in 2013 of 782 million tons with
27 % share of European countries (IDF, 2013) was
not a surprise. The average milk production in Serbia
has been estimated to 1.6 million tons per year while
52 % of it was delivered to dairy plants for further
processing (Tomic and Sevarlic, 2010). Currently,
there are more than 200 registered dairies in
Serbia, but only 123 of them are active. Depending
on processing capacities, Serbian dairies can be
categorized as follows: (i) plants with capacity over
20,000 litres of milk/day, (ii) plants with capacity
below 20,000 litres of milk/day and (iii) small craft
dairies with daily capacity below 3,000 litres/day
(Report, 2012). Big dairies own 90 % of total country’s
production capacity, medium sized 6.0 %,
whereas small dairy companies only have 4.0% of
the market share (van Berkum, 2010).