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Congratulations to our 2014 Official Conference Cheesemongers!
ACS is pleased to announce our 2014 Official Conference Cheesemongers. These cheese professionals will manage the receipt, movement, storage, and preparation of thousands of cheeses and other donated products that play a starring role in ACS Conference events.
Congratulations to Randall Felts of Whole Foods Market in Alabama (pictured above), and Kelsie Parsons of Sobeys Inc in Ontario (pictured below)!
Randall and Kelsie were selected after a competitive application process including the largest number of candidates in the Official Conference Cheesemonger program's history. Learn more about Randall and Kelsie, and be say hello (and thanks) to them in Sacramento!
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ACS CCP Exam
is Filling Up Quickly!
If you are interested in taking the CCP Exam this year, please get your application in ASAP to guarantee your spot. Spaces are filling up very quickly.
To learn more, or to apply for the ACS CCP Exam, click here. |
What's In A Name?
Prescott by Robinson Farm in Hardwick, MA
2013 ACS Judging & Competition, 3rd place - "Open Category - Farmstead Cheeses - Hard - Made from Cow's Milk; Aged Over 60 Days - Less than 39% Moisture"
Prescott is an Alpine style cheese with nutty notes and a slight saline finish. It is aged 9-12 months. Prescott is named after one of the 4+ towns that were lost in order to form the Quabbin Reservoir near Robinson Farm. Pamela Robinson says, "We find it is a distinctive name and the cheese, a Comté style, has complex flavor."
Quabbin Reservoir is the primary water source for Boston. Construction of the Quabbin Reservoir started in 1938 and was completed in 1940. The project was opposed by residents of the affected towns, who took their case to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, but lost. Prescott, as well as Dana, Enfield, and Greenwich, were disincorporated in April 1938. Many public buildings in the towns were moved to other locations, such as the Prescott First Congregational Church, which was moved to S. Hadley.
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ACS Board of Directors is Seeking Nominations
The ACS Nominating Committee is seeking nominations for the Board of Directors. The Board is an active and dynamic group that is deeply committed to the vision of the organization: to be the leader in supporting and promoting American cheeses. The Board is tasked with fiduciary oversight and the long-term strategic growth of the organization. Board members take an active role as leaders advising on matters of strategic import and organizational policy, serving on committees and task forces, and working with staff and volunteers to foster a vibrant, knowledgeable, and passionate cheese community.
Learn about the nomination process and Board member responsibilities here. If you or someone you know would be a strong candidate, email a letter of nomination to ACS.
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Greetings from the Icy Midwest!
 Despite the weather extremes plaguing the entire continent, it has turned out to be a very busy month in the world of cheese, and it looks like 2014 will continue on this path! Those fortunate enough to escape to San Francisco were treated to unnaturally warm and arid weather, but we also experienced three major industry events that celebrated and activated our community. The Good Food Awards bestowed honor on many of ACS's members and award-winner Andy Hatch of Wisconsin's Uplands Cheese delivered a powerful speech on how the passage of time is tempered by farm life, which forces the over-eager to slow down and those who wish to slow it down to pick up the pace. Time in the cheese industry is a constant, and it keeps us all centered and grounded. Something to think about as we wish for Winter to speed up and get all this cold out of here! You can't rush cheese. The Fancy Food Show and another year of the American Cheese Society's cheese pavilion proved to be a sold-out success, and the number of folks inquiring about Sacramento as well as our CCP Exam was truly encouraging. Kudos to our Sacramento Conference Co-Chairs, Jill, Juliana, and Lynn, as well as their planning committee, for a very successful media launch to generate interest in and coverage of our upcoming 2014 conference in California's capital city. Cheeky tee-shirts asking if we wanted to "Get Certified in the SAC" spread virally during the week to nervous chuckles and even more inquiries. They were especially noticeable at the first ever West Coast edition of the Cheesemonger Invitational (CMI) which was a helluva lotta fun and was represented by a whole host of ACS cheesemonger members who made us all proud! Importantly for our organization, your elected ACS board met to deep-dive into the big issues facing our organization and industry for 2014 and beyond. We broke it down into five or six major strategic chunks including ACS fiscal management and investment priorities, engagement with regulatory authorities, educational priorities, the board's structure and schedule, as well as the optimal role of future conference co-chairs in the era of a self-managed organization. While the meeting lasted only one day, our conversation was robust and a lot was accomplished and set in motion. During the course of the year, I will be sure to update you on the development relative to these areas. First up is our Regulatory and Academic Committee, which is working hard as a team to interpret and address the seemingly endless stream of potential FDA policy changes that are being considered. The board and its executive committee are also working closely with our partner organizations and engaging the regulatory authorities on the big picture of what this all means, and how ACS and the cheese industry as a whole can help shape our future with our regulatory partners. This is not always easy and it sometimes can be frustrating, but we will not relent. Of course, we will keep you posted with any developments -- and we will continue to develop our Best Practices for Cheesemakers with an eye toward being the very best we can be in providing cheese of highest quality, made with this highest safety standards. What can you do as we begin the new year? Proactively take a look at your operation, whether you are a producer, distributor, or retailer, to determine how your company can raise the bar in terms of safety, sanitation, and procedures. Need assistance or resources to tackle this? Reach out to ACS and we will do our best to steer you to them. Yes, 2014 is going to be an active year in cheese, but I am confident that we have the talent, energy and resources to collectively take ACS to new heights! Wishing you water where you need it, and warmth where you don't have it! Best, Greg O'Neill President
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 The Chinese New Year begins on January 31. This will be the Year of the Horse, and for ACS, we will need all of our members' horsepower to drive us forward. This year, my attention is more focused on education than ever before. Education is the central part of our mission, and will be key for us to help you stay on the forefront of regulatory changes and food safety best practices. To that end, our Regulatory & Academic Committee is pushing forward efforts to develop a Best Practices Guide for Cheesemakers. We plan to share this with members at the 2014 Conference in Sacramento, and plans are for a similar guide for retailers to follow thereafter. In addition, news has been coming to us about growing scrutiny of a number of traditional cheesemaking methods and areas where regulatory change could greatly impact our members: the 60-day aging rule for raw milk cheeses, aging on wood surfaces, soft-ripened cheeses, enhanced inspections at retail, and more. I ask our members to please continue to let ACS know of issues that you see arising locally and regionally so that we can keep abreast of what is happening on the ground. Feel free to email me at nweiser@cheesesociety.org to share items, news, and concerns. Offering valuable educational opportunities and keeping our members abreast of important issues is part of ACS's stewardship of the cheese industry. I will be speaking at the United States Association of Cider Makers conference next week on the topic of stewardship, and this leads me to reflect on how this applies to our industry. Stewardship can be defined as the care, protection, and advancement of something valuable -- an industry, a business, an association, a product, and all of the resources that support it. Cheesemakers have a variety of different approaches to their work, their products, and their businesses. By embracing a shared responsibility as good industry stewards, commonalities can outweigh differences and strengthen the industry as a whole. Good stewardship translates into good business, and has played a role in the growth of the artisan cheese industry. But there are also challenges that come with success -- and increased regulatory scrutiny of artisan, farmstead, and specialty cheese may be among those challenges. Joint efforts across all facets of our industry are the key to stewardship during these changing times. ACS strives to be a big tent, and in 2014 I hope all of our members feel welcome in this tent. I hope we can work together toward a common goal of continuing to create and share great cheese with the public. Sincerely, Nora Weiser Executive Director
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The Importance of Getting It Right
 | | Judging & Competition Chair Tom Kooiman |
The Judging & Competition Committee has spent the past few years putting together tutorials for you, the cheesemaker, on how to pack your cheeses to be received for each ACS conference. Proper packaging and insulation makes all the difference while your cheeses are in transit. We hope that by taking the necessary steps to get your cheeses to the Competition, they will be evaluated in top condition. Along with packing your cheeses for optimal shipping results, there are other factors at play in how your entries arrive at the convention center for receiving. The obvious variable out there is that we can never control the weather. This is very apparent particularly during the summer months. Please take a moment prior to packaging your cheese to evaluate the weather where the Judging & Competition will be held and be sure to pack accordingly.
 While the Judging & Competition Committee works to ensure that all entries are handled seamlessly, we are always confronted with the fact that each site is different. As a conference attendee, you primarily experience the venue from the "Front of House," i.e. ballrooms and corridors, while the J&C Committee, on the other hand, deals with these spaces as an afterthought. We conduct the bulk of our work in the "Back of House," the deep hallways behind the kitchens, the dock spaces, etc. We hope that we will be able to beg, borrow, or charm the resources that our host conference center will allow us to use. Because each location is different and brings about its own set of unique challenges, we adapt to the surroundings. When we were receiving 700 or 800 cheeses, it was a difficult task. Now that we handle 1000 cheeses more than those earlier numbers, the planning stage is started months before... [continue reading]
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From the Member Services Desk
Each month, in this feature, you'll learn about a great ACS benefit available to members. Be sure to get the most out of your ACS membership by taking advantage of these valuable, educational, and money-saving benefits.
ACS has partnered with the American Dairy Science Association to offer you a special e-membership rate of $55 to the ADSA. The ADSA is an international association of scientists, educators, and dairy industry representatives. Its vision is to be the premier scientific society for dairy education and technological advancement. The ADSA's Journal of Dairy Science® was ranked 2nd of 55 journals in Thomson Reuters' Agriculture, Dairy, and Animal Science category for the 2011 Impact Factor.
Benefits of ADSA membership include electronic access to the Journal of Dairy Science®, access to Joint Annual Meeting symposia from 2003-2013, access to searchable Joint Annual Meeting abstracts from 1998-2009, and the opportunity to subscribe to S-PAC® (Searchable Proceedings of Animal Conferences) at the ADSA member rate of $75.
To become a member of the ADSA, please contact the ACS office at 720-328-2788 to receive an ADSA partner code.
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Regulatory News & Updates
FDA Launches Pilot Program to Test Domestic & Imported Raw Milk Cheese
This month, FDA is slated to launch a new pilot program to sample and test domestic and imported raw milk cheeses aged at least 60 days for salmonella, L. monocytogenes, and E. coli O157:H7. Read a recent ACS Member Alert to learn more about this pilot program.
FDA Publishes Proposed Regulation on Intentional Contamination:
Comment Period Open Through March 31, 2014
As part of its implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), FDA recently published a proposed regulation on Intentional Contamination to the Federal Register. The proposed regulation would require certain companies that process food to establish a written food defense program that includes actionable steps and strategies to significantly reduce or eliminate intentional contamination of raw materials, packaging, in-process product, and finished products. Click here for details about how the proposed regulation may affect dairy farms and other processing plants, or see FDA's Fact Sheet. The public may comment via the Federal Register through March 31.
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ACS Member Discount: Sanitation for Farmstead Dairies
The University of Wisconsin-River Falls is offering a 15% discount to ACS members for its Sanitation for Farmstead Dairies online course. The course will take place online from February 17 - March 28. Each week will include discussion board questions and assignments based on readings. The course is designed to help participants understand and apply proper sanitation techniques in food processing establishments. After completing the course, participants should:
- Be able to define technical terms and explain their relationship to sanitation.
- Find and interpret pertinent literature regarding sanitation.
- Critique situations and make suggested corrections.
- Design Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures (SSOP) for their establishment.
For more details, click here. In order to receive your $60 discount off the $400 course, attach a copy of your ACS member card* to your registration form.
*If you have not received your 2014 ACS member card, please contact Jana at 720-328-2788 and she will mail it to you.
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Connect to ACS
Stay connected to ACS no matter where you are! Follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@CheeseSociety), or LinkedIn. Get the latest updates from the cheese community, connect with fellow cheesemakers, retailers and enthusiasts, and tell us what's happening in your world.
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