Hello everyone,

 

I want to remind you of the great resources that the American Cheese Society has developed and makes available to all members on its website. The next time you visit www.cheesesociety.org, click on the Member Resources tab, and you will find the "Member's Toolbox" (see the screenshot below). Inside, you can access announcements of upcoming educational programs, an archive of past webinars that are still available for viewing, and more. Among other offerings, you'll find a membership directory and a Crisis Management Tool Kit, which is a good resource for all of us to have on hand. The website is ever evolving to bring more practical information to our cheese community, so check it out again if you haven't browsed it in a while.

 

 

To visit the Member's Toolbox on the ACS website, simply click on the red "Member Resources" tab at the top of the ACS homepage.

 

From the Food Safety Front

 

FDA, CDC, and USDA's FSIS have released a new report, "Foodborne Illness Source Attribution Estimates for Salmonella, Escherichia coli O157 (E. coli O157), Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), and Campylobacter using Outbreak Surveillance Data." The report seeks to assess the categories of food and pathogens most responsible for outbreaks and illnesses between 1998 - 2012.

                                                     

Some key findings of the report include:

• In total, 954 outbreaks caused by the four studied pathogens led to over 33,718 illnesses. Salmonella was responsible for 69% of these illnesses. 
• 42% of all illnesses attributed to the report's four pathogens were linked to meat, poultry, and eggs; 38% to produce; and 14% to dairy products.
• Produce led to 44% of Salmonella illnesses, with meat and poultry responsible for 28%. Dairy products were responsible for just 3% of Salmonella illnesses.
• 47% of illnesses caused by E. coli O157 were linked to produce; 43% to meat and poultry; and 9% to dairy.
• "While studies of sporadic campylobacteriosis find low attribution to dairy products, 60% of the 161 Campylobacter outbreaks in this analysis attributed to a single food category were associated with unpasteurized milk or cheese made from unpasteurized milk."
• 41% of Listeria illnesses were attributed to produce, 32% to meat and poultry, and 28% to dairy. This indicates that Listeria contamination is distributed quite broadly among all food categories.

 

ACS will share additional updates with members as they become available.

 

Nora Weiser

ACS Judging & Competition News: An Explanation of

Changes to Category "T" - Washed Rind Cheeses for 2015

 

 

Cheesemakers: Don't Miss our Next FREE Webinar

 

Spring into the 2015 ACS Judging & Competition!

 

Led by John Greeley, Gourmet Foods International

 

Tuesday, March 10, 2015
9:30 AM - 11:00 AM MST

 

 Register Today

 

With spring fast approaching and the ACS Judging & Competition (J&C) Call for Entries just around the corner, the J&C Committee and a renowned team of judges are gearing up for another exciting year of evaluating your cheese and cultured dairy products. Join us for an in-depth look at the 2015 Category changes with a particular focus on the exciting changes to Category T (Washed Rind Cheese), an explanation of why the categories change each year, and what it takes to create and enter an American Original.

 

Join John Greeley, ACS Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and founding member of the ACS Judging & Competition, as he shares the history of how competition categories are created and reviewed each year. John will be joined by Tom Kooiman, ACS Judging & Competition Chair, and Dr. Stephanie Clark, ACS Judging & Competition Technical Advisor, to help answer your questions throughout the webinar. For those who are planning to enter the 2015 Judging & Competition, this is a webinar you won't want to miss!

 

Member Profile: The Cheese Traveler 

 

Use by permission of the Times Union, Albany, NY

 

 

Featured Cheese: Holland's Family Cheese Marieke Goudas

 

By Marcella Wright, ACS CCP™

 

In 2013, Marieke Penterman's "Marieke Gouda" won Grand Champion at the US Cheese Championship. This award came less than five years after she made her first wheel of Gouda on her farm in Wisconsin. Although not the first nor the last award, no doubt it was one of the highlights of her young Cheesemaker career. And this past month, Marieke won another prestigious award, "2015 Wisconsin Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year."

 

Marieke was born and raised on a cow dairy farm in the Netherlands. She had planned to become a veterinarian however, to quote John Lennon, "Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans." During an internship in Canada, Marieke met her husband and while dating, his family bought a farm in Thorp, Wisconsin. The rest is cheesemaking history...[continue reading]