Agriculture & Food, Volume 4, 2016

Abstract: Dairy products have been very important components in the Turkish diet for centuries especially cheese which is a principle food and a tradition for breakfast. Traditional dairy products are becoming more popular in Turkey due to the turning back to the “natural alimentation”. They are differing between regions in Turkey according to the geographical location, cultural differences and traditional customs and values. Many factors are influencing the consumption of traditional dairy products such as; migration of the people from rural to urban areas, nostalgia, renewal of the nutrition habits, agro-turism, interest on products of free from additives. Most of the traditional products is produced only in the rural areas and some of them are about to be forgotten. Lack of the interdisciplinary collaboration between farmer, producer and the consumer triangle, hygienic and sanitary conditions in the production and storage conditions constitute the main problems. In the Hatay province of Turkey is mainly processed into some traditional dairy products such as; Salted yoghurt, Carra cheese, Surk cheese, Künefe cheese, Sünme cheese, Hatay Dil cheese, Ezme cheese. The aims of this review were to introduce traditional dairy products produced in the Hatay province of Turkey and to characterize the processing stages and to describe their compositional characteristics.