Our April 2011 meeting was hosted by Anne Bossi and Bob Bowen of Sunset Acres Creamery in Brooksville. We had a tour of their *working* cheese room (curds scooped and draining as we looked in), learned about how they try to control humidity in their cheese caves, and saw how they heat their water so efficiently that they no longer need solar hot water panels! Plus lots of discussion on a variety of topics, among them them the pending legislation around dairy and raw milk sales, hooking up milk producers with cheese makers, hooking up retailers with cheese producers, and hooking up young cheesemakers with land and facilities to make more Maine cheese, which the market is demanding…
Category Archives: Guild
Info about the Guild
Feb Meeting — Spring Day Creamery
Sarah Spring invited the Guild to visit her at her micro-creamery in Durham for our February meeting. Her house sits on a sunny rise on a back road and ably accommodate the large group that met there to discuss efforts to get Maine cheesemakers to participate in the ACS conference, info about current and future workshops, the importance of the upcoming Sanitation Workshop, and especially the fate of legally making raw milk cheeses while the state of Maine is trying to allow unregulated cheeses into the marketplace, and the Feds are thinking about scrapping any tolerance of unpasteurized dairy products. Needless to say there was much to talk about, and much to act on. Stay tuned.
Dairy Farm Requirements — An Overview
Below is a link to a PDF document outlining the basics for setting up a small scale dairy operation and then getting your Maine Dairy Processors license to allow you to sell your products. It was put together by the Maine Micro-Dairy Cooperative which, sadly, is no longer an on-going operation
In addition to the basic regulations, it’s also important to be on top of all the sanitation needs for a small scale milking dairy, something that the Guild and/or the University of Maine Cooperative Extension can help you with. Join the Guild, attend our meetings, and together we can make great cheese together!
From the introduction:
The purpose of this document is to provide a basic overview of the requirements and standards that must be met for the production and sale of milk and dairy products in the state of Maine. It is not intended to replace nor supersede the official Department of Agriculture publication (Chapter 329: Rules Governing Maine Milk and Milk Products) from which it is derived, nor should it seem to take precedence over the judgment and advice of the State Dairy Inspectors who oversee the regulatory compliance of each producer and processor. It should be used as a guide only, in combination with on-site consultation and Department of Agriculture recommendations.