Category Archives: Events

Posts about Workshops, Meetings, Festivals and conferences with a focus on cheese, dairy and agriculture.

Vermont Cheese Festival Announced

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vt_cheesefest_logoVermont is hosting a Vermont Cheesemakers Festival on August 23rd at Shelburne Farms.  We have about 35 cheesemakers attending with tables and would like to see any of the NH guild members or Maine Guild members would be interested in having a table. The thinking is that a one-day regional event might capture a lot of the retailers from New York North who might not be traveling to Austin.  We are hoping for 1000 attendees (consumer and trade) .  This would be a great opportunity for any cheesemaker who is looking for good regional exposure and new customers.  If you think that there would be interest, I would be happy to put together a more formal letter to your members.  I would need to get your assistance in distributing it.  Thanks in advance for your thoughts.  The almost ready site is at www.vtcheesefest.com.

Allison Hooper
Vermont Butter & Cheese Company
P.O. Box 95
Websterville, Vermont  05678
800-884-6287www.vtbutterandcheeseco.com

Guild Meeting

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Monday, April 6 @ 10am – Dept. of Agriculture, Cony Rd. Warehouse, Augusta

According to Don Hoenig, our host, the building is ” on Cony Rd. south of route 17 about half a mile on the left if you’re heading south.” According to Google Maps it’s at 333 Cony Rd.

The agenda for this meeting will include:

Guild Meeting and Sanitation Workshop

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umcoopext

May 11 – U of Maine Cooperative Extension, Orono (Sanitation Workshop)

*Now Full; No Longer Accepting New Registrations*

Agenda:

Sanitation Training & Introduction to HACCP for Cheese-makers

May 11, 2009
McIntire Room, Buchanan Alumni House; UMaine, Orono campus
Time: 10:00am – 4:00pm

Lunch is provided. Free for Maine Cheese Guild Members
$10.00 for non-Guild members

Please register with Melissa Potts via email: [email protected] or by calling toll free: 1-800-287-7170, as we have a registration limit of 30 people.

Directions can be downloaded from the University website, including a campus map.

If you do not have internet access, please call Melissa for a campus map.

Tentative Schedule:

10:00am – Registration

10:30am – Beth Calder (Extension Food Science Specialist) will discuss bacteria, bacterial growth and food safety.

11:15am- Gary Anderson (Extension Animal and Bio-Sciences Specialist) will discuss farm and milk room sanitation, cleaning equipment, recommended water temperatures, appropriate cleaning/sanitizing products and how to use them, quality testing and thoughts from a dairy inspector’s perspective.

Break at 12:30pm – Lunch will be provided.

Resume with Gary’s talk at 1:15pm.

1:45pm – Barbara Brooks (Seal Cove Farm; Lamoine, ME) will discuss sanitation from the farm/cheese processing perspective; what has worked for her and problems she has encountered and what she has done to correct the situation.

2:30pm – Beth will discuss recommended cleaners/sanitizers for the cheese-room and FDA recommendations at what level to use.

3:00pm – Beth will briefly describe HACCP principles and how to incorporate HACCP into your cheese-making process along with worksheets to take home.
4:00pm – End of training/Questions & answers.