From a homemade to an industrial product : manufacturing Bulgarian yogurt

Changes in yogurt production in the first half of the twentieth century were related to the transformation of dairy manufacturing through the incorporation of science and technology into the production process. The modernization of the dairy industry affected yogurt, which Bulgarians considered a traditional national product. Scientific discourse reduced regional variations to one universal "ideal type" of yogurt: a model for all producers. That standardized product embodied a nationalistic policy that authenticated products on the basis of their Bulgarianization. This transition of production also changed the labor profile, as housewives relinquished yogurt making to male workers in small dairies.