Process streams in the manufacture of goat and sheep dairy products and ingredients

Milk and dairy processing have seen significant innovations in the last decades, whose implementation is now accelerating under the pressure of demand for higher quality, sustainability and economic efficiency. Considering the complex composition of milk, the focus of innovation is increasingly shifting from milk as whole raw matter to single fractions or even single compounds, with the development of technological application that can improve the efficiency of the process and the quality of the products. In dairy innovation, the bovine sector has always acted as a catalyst for possible changes in the small ruminant sector, to which this review article is dedicated. It provides an overview of the streams deriving from processing of goat and sheep milk, deepening their technological production, composition and, for by-products and waste, possible valorization strategies. Particular attention is paid to the application of membrane filtration technology to sheep and goat milk, which is proving to be a powerful tool for creating new opportunities for the valorization of milk and related by-products. Overall, a new technological approach appears to readers, in which the single milk fractions become the target of the process. In the future, such an approach will offer to goat and sheep dairies the opportunity of widening the product portfolio, improving the nutritional properties of dairy products and valorizing some specific compounds as functional ingredients. • The single milk fractions or groups of compounds are becoming the target of dairy processing. • Correct managing of dairy streams allows more efficient and circular production systems. • Membrane filtration technologies improve the valorization of sheep and goat milk and by-products.