Tag Archives: ACS

ACS Conference 2016 Grant Opportunity

Posted on by

At our February 2016 the Guild committed to offering at least three ACS Conference Grants for Guild members to attend this year’s American Cheese Society conference in

Des Moines, Iowa July 27th through the 30th.

The grants would pay for the Early Bird conference fee of around $500, which would be roughly a third of total expenses for attending (you would be responsible for your ACS Membership, travel and lodging expenses). Grant recipients are then required to write and publish at least one detailed review of a workshop or educational experience they participated in at the conference to share with the rest of the Guild.

If you can commit to attending the ACS Conference this summer and would like to apply for a guild Grant to do so, please write

—one paragraph describing you and your cheese experience,
—and one paragraph describing what you seek to gain by attending the ACS conference;
—your name and contact info;
—send to info@mainecheeseguild.org with the subject “Guild Grant Request” BEFORE our April 11th meeting.

At that meeting the group will discuss the number of folks seeking a grant, and given our current finances how many grants the Guild can afford to offer. If there are more grant seekers than grants available, the Guild board will review the applications and choose whom will receive Grants before Early Bird registration starts on May 4th.

In the past the Guild has offered to pay the entry fee for any Guild member’s first ACS competition entry, and the Guild has also assembled a group shipment of all Guild entries into the competition. These items will be discussed and budgeted at the April meeting, and the decisions will be announced to the full Guild right after that.

Notes on Water Buffalo Cheesemaker from ACS 2015

Posted on by

Notes on Water Buffalo Session at ACS Conference 2015
7/31/2015 10AM
[photo courtesy of Zhangzhugang through Wikimedia]

Quattro Portoni: Water Bufala in Northern Italy? A Transition That Worked!
by Bruno Gritti, moderated by Michele Buster

190 million Water Buffalo in the world; less than 1% are in Italy (370,000), 2.9% in Africa, 2.4% elsewhere in Europe and North and South America combined; the remainder are in Asia. [Reference: U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research, 2012]

Italian Bufala is considered a sub-species; its geneology is tracked back to 12,000 animals that survived WWII. Most are found in Campania (278,000), followed by Lazio (66,000), and then Lombardy (only 6,000).

Quattro Portoni is in Bergano Province in Lombardy, which is the alpine region of norther Italy. They have 60 Hectares of pasture and fields that grow wheat and tritcale as well as hay. They generate 99% of their feed on the farm. They maintain 250 milking cows, 100 “non-dairy” animals, 300 heifers, and 170 steers at any one time.
Continue reading→

2015 ACS Festival of Cheese

Posted on by

The Festival of Cheese, which concludes the ACS Conference every year is always a highlight of the conference for both the attending cheese makers, as well as the host city because the public is invited to taste and enjoy the bounty of North American cheese!