“…Several studies have pointed out that this technology can be conveniently used to estimate novel phenotypes that are difficult to measure routinely at population scale (Tsenkova et al., 1999). Examples are: milk fatty acid profile (De Marchi et al., 2011; Soyeurt et al., 2006), coagulation properties (Bittante et al., 2012; Bonfatti et al., 2016; Cellesi et al., 2019; Gaspa et al., 2022) and mineral composition (Franzoi et al., 2021; Visentin et al., 2018); diet composition (Klaffenböck et al., 2017) and digestibility (Simoni et al., 2021); dry matter intake and residual feed intake (Lahart et al., 2019; Shetty et al., 2017) energy balance and efficiency (McParland & Berry, 2016); metabolic profile (de Roos et al., 2007; Santschi et al., 2016); methane emissions (Dehareng et al., 2012; Martínez‐Marín et al., 2023; van Gastelen & Dijkstra, 2016). For this reason, in some countries a systematic collection and storage of milk FTIR spectra generated in dairy herd improvement (DHI) programs has started.…”