In 2004 An-najah national University launched a dairy plant in the Faculty of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine and the official opening was held under his patronage Professor Rami Hamdallah the president of An-Najah National University. The plant comes to close the cycle of dairy production from field to table in the same site where feed, milk production and dairy products are taking place.

The first stage of production comprises of production of Pasteurized cheese and Labaneh in addition to goat, ewes and cattle pasteurized milk all produced under supervision of qualified staff. As part of our mission to provide practical teaching in Dairy processing and Food microbiology this dairy plant plays a complementary role to achieve our goals in addition to linking with the local community of schools and colleges.

Generally talking the production process consists of:

• Initial cooling: where fresh milk is stored at 4 o C

• Heat treatment by pasteurization using heat exchanger with temperature in reaches 80 o C

• Incubation where milk is cooled down to a temperature suitable for microorganism to make yogurt or cheese in the case of rennet.

Yogurt is further packed in cloth bags to concentrate the solids and remove whey and labneh is formed.

While for cheese, the curd is cut down to remove whey and the pressed in small pieces and packaged for marketing.

The dairy plant is keen to achieve high quality products with good specifications and our products have got a good reputation in the local market.