What is A2 milk? Is all Desi cow milk A2? Is only Desi cow milk A2?

Most importantly, how do I check if the milk I am getting is genuinely A2?

A2 milk comes at a premium, (read : Why is A2 milk more expensive), and given the benefits we don’t mind paying the price. But there is always this uneasy feeling, whether what we are getting is actually A2 milk. There is way too much clutter and every milk vendor seems to be saying similar things, right?

Ok, so this might take some time, but let’s try and break this down.

What is A2 milk

Very simplistically, A2 is the nomenclature of one of the protein chains within the milk. Mammals naturally have A2 protein, but over last few hundred years, a lot of western cow breeds genetically mutated to have a mix of A1 and A2 proteins in the milk.

A2 milk refers to milk produced by cows having pure A2 genetics, with no presence of A1.

Holstein Friesian is the highest milk yielding breed, and now most common - in organized dairies across the world as well as India. It has A1 and A2 in approx 60:40 ratio. This varies for individual animal (depends on genetics)

Which Breeds produce A2 milk

It is very interesting to note that the presence of A2 protein seems to be inversely proportional to the milk yields of the respective breeds.

So yes, our Indigenous milch breeds like Sahiwal, Gir, Rathi, Tharparkar etc seem to have the genetics for producing pure A2 milk. The production levels make them uneconomical, hence the rampant crossbreeding.

Do all Desi cows produce A2 milk?

It is really difficult to find pure breed Desi cows, Sahiwal & Tharparkar being even tougher than Gir. We have spent last 6 years building our herd. We know. A lot of the animals look like they might be desi, but might have a percentage of HF/ Jersey ancestry.

The one on the left is 25% HF. To an untrained eye, it might pass of as a Sahiwal cow.

The cross-breeding effort over the last three decades has been so rampant that even in government livestock farms, 5-10% of the desi breed cows have tested with some small percentage of A1 in milk.

Hence, the only way someone can say for sure that they are selling A2 milk is if ALL the animals are genetically tested for A2, individually.

This is of course the final stage, before that the farm needs to work towards ensuring the purity of breed in their herd. Most so-called desi cow farms are getting away with keeping non-descript/ cross breed cows which look similar to Sahiwal/ Gir but have exotic blood in them.

So is my A2 milk delivery company sending me real A2 milk

We will try to give some indicators for you to gauge –

1. Aggregators or Producers:

There are two types of A2 milk providers – Aggregators, who collect milk from other dairy farmers and Producers, who keep their own cows.

Very surprisingly there is very little difference between the procurement price of regular cow milk and Desi cow A2 milk, which most of the aggregators give.

In our experience, keeping pure desi cows is not a profitable proposition, so the incentive of that dairy to give pure A2 milk to the aggregation company is very low.

2. Showcase farms:

Average production per day for desi cows is 3.5 – 5 litres per day per cow (depending on quality of cows and if calves are fed mothers milk). Let’s assume 4/cow/day.

So a farm sending out 500 litres a day should have ~ 125 large cows (not including calves)

A lot of providers now have farms with a small herd, say 50 animals, but are sending out milk equivalent of 200 animals. Where is the balance milk coming from? Obviously, aggregation from other dairies.

Go visit the farm. See the herd size. Try and gauge the quality and breed purity of animals. Get an estimate of deliveries being done – through number of delivery guys, areas being covered etc. Assume 25-30 litres per delivery person (lower as penetration of A2 is low, hence delivery persons cover larger geography)

3. Distance of farm & processing involved

If the milk is processed/ pasteurized, you can’t get is tested for A2 in a lab - It would need to be raw milk, delivered within a short time to the lab at low temperature.

Also, maybe your chances of visiting the source are better

4. Of certifications and everything else.

Unfortunately, the regulatory environment in India vis a vis A2 is very weak/ non-existent. There is no authorized agency giving certifications of A2 to farms. It is upto the farm/ company to

a) Ensure the purity of breed

b) Test their animals for A2, or

c) Send a sample of milk for A2 testing to lab

So it finally boils down to the INTENT of the milk provider. One can always get the milk sample of 1 pure desi cow tested for A2 and then produce that as a certificate. There are way too many workarounds (We have received request in the past for a sample of a few of our cows to be used for testing by them!!!)

As consumers, I suppose all we can do is pick up pointers from above, do the necessary due diligence, ask the right questions, visit the farm and finally gauge the intent and dedication of the dairy farmer.

Real A2 milk