How do the nature of forages and pasture diversity influence the sensory quality of dairy livestock products?

Abstract Abstract This review summarizes the recent developments in understanding of the relationships between the diet of animals and the sensory quality of dairy products. Feeding dairy cattle with maize silage by comparison with hay or grass silage leads to whiter and firmer cheeses and butter and sometimes to differences in flavour. Major differences in sensory characteristics were observed between cheeses made with milk produced by cows on winter diets (based on hay and grass silage) or turned out to pasture in the spring. Conversely, preserving grass as silage, by comparison with hay, has no major effect on cheese sensory characteristics, except on colour, the cheese being yellower with grass silage. Several recent experiments have shown a significant effect of grass botanical composition on cheese texture and flavour. These effects are due to the presence in milk of specific molecules directly introduced by feeding (carotenes, terpenes) or produced by the animals (plasmin, fatty acids) under the effect of specific diets.