Eli5: If the milk of each cow is unique, how come all milk bottles of a brand taste the same?

Question

I remember tasting milk of many cows in my family farm. Each cow had a “signature” taste and part of the experience of drinking milk was enjoying the different tastes. The taste of milk of one single cow depends on many factors: age, diet, health, etc. Then, how do companies standardise the taste of their bottled milk? Best case scenario I can imagine is that producers blends the milk of many cows, but this is definitely no guarantee of a standardised taste. How is this achieved?

In: 462

Answer 1

Dairy farms collect the milk from all their cows and mix them together to get a consistent, homogenous product. In fact, they will intentionally add cows of different breeds to their herds to alter the properties of the milk. Some breeds of cattle produce milk with higher butterfat percentages, others produce milk with more lactose, etc.