*** IF YOU ARE ALREADY REGISTERED OR HOLD A VIDEO PASS AND NEED INFO ON HOW TO ACCESS OUR ONLINE EVENT PLATFORM, SET IT UP FOR YOUR TIME ZONE, VIEW/JOIN LIVE SESSIONS, AND WATCH RECORDED SESSIONS YOU CAN FIND THAT HERE. ***

*** If you are attending the event and having any technical issues, please email info@vtcheese.com for help! ***

ABOUT THE EVENT

We are very excited to announce that this year we will be piloting an Artisan Cheesemakers Winter Conference.  This virtual/online event is designed to provide exposure to new ideas and educational experiences for artisan cheesemakers – to help them advance their cheesemaking and business practices, as well as our industry as a whole.

While our content focuses on information to support professional cheesemakers, attendance is open to all, including other cheese industry professionals, amateur cheesemakers, the general public, and anyone who wants to dive more deeply into the world of cheese. We encourage anyone curious and interested to explore our schedule and speaker line up.

DATE

Friday, February 26

SPEAKERS

• Peter Dixon  Dairy Foods Consulting (Westminster West, Vermont)
• Joe Klopfenstein  Assistant Professor, Rural Veterinary Practice, Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine – Oregon State University (Corvallis, Oregon)
• Ivan Larcher  Cheesemaker, Cheese Full Circle/The Cheese School (Castlemaine, Australia)
• Rosy Neale Quality Assurance Manager/Food Safety Specialist (Petaluma, California)
• Ben Wolfe  Associate Professor, The Wolfe Lab at Tufts University (Medford, Massachusetts, USA)

RECORDING SESSIONS

We recorded all of our technical sessions.  If you had to step away to milk animals, make cheese, check in with kids, or anything else – you can go back to the Sched.com event platform and rewatch sessions through any session’s Details Page THROUGH APRIL 2.

If you purchased a VIDEO PASS you can also view/watch all sessions through April 2.

PRESENTATION TOPICS

• Listeria Monocytogenes: Growth and Methods of Decontamination in Brushes and Brines Used in Washed-Rind Cheese Production  Washed-rind, or smear-ripened, cheeses are considered high-risk for contamination with Listeria monocytogenes due to favorable growth conditions on the cheese rind and multiple points for contamination during post-production cheese care and aging. We will discuss the conditions and environments that contribute to contamination of wash solutions and aging tools with L. monocytogenes, and provide validated methods for decontamination that can easily and cost-effectively be implemented in a cheese production and aging facility.  SPEAKER BIO:  As a researcher who is uniquely guided by experience as a cheesemaker and scientist both, Rosy Neale’s work brings together these two worlds to support cheese and dairy production, with a focus on food safety. Rosy’s graduate thesis research in Dr. Catherine Donnelly’s Listeria research lab at the University of Vermont focused on two cooperative areas: (1) the survival of Listeria monocytogenes and L. innocua in washed-rind cheese aging tools and wash solutions and (2) using an outreach and education approach to share her research findings within the cheesemaking community.
• Being a Defect Detective:  4 Common Problems Sourced in Milk Composition & Quality  When we make cheese, sometimes things go wrong, leading to defects.  This session helps you learn how to think about doing the detective work to figure out what has gone wrong when you do see defects in your product.  While talking about the detectiving process overall, we’ll focus on the most common problems that are rooted in milk composition and quality.  SPEAKER BIO:  As a dairy foods consultant and artisan cheesemaker, Peter Dixon draws on over 37 years of cheesemaking and 24 years of consulting with people engaged in or interested in making cheese and dairy products. He works with dairy farmers and cheesemakers both to help them design, develop, and improve their milk processing businesses and processes, specializing in work with farmstead and artisan cheese producers.  Peter and his wife, Rachel, also own and operate Parish Hill Creamery where they make natural raw milk cheese.
• Opportunities and Challenges with Seasonal Milk and Small Ruminants  Early and late lactation milk variation can pose significant challenges – and opportunities – for cheesemakers who work with small ruminants.  In this presentation, we will consider:  What are your cheese production options and alternatives?  What are the difficulties and challenges that each alternative poses?  What options do you have to turn those challenges into opportunities? SPEAKER BIO: With a career that began as a cheesemaker in France, Ivan Larcher has spent the last 20-plus years training cheesemakers across the globe in all aspects of cheese production, including facility and process design, quality management, milk manipulation for cheesemaking, and recipe manipulation/design.  He moved to Australia in 2020 with his family to open The Cheese School at Cheese Full Circle, where he is also the production manager for Long Paddock Cheese.
• Interpreting Milk Tests For a cheesemaker, their product begins at the source:  Milk.  In this presentation, you’ll learn about how you can convert data from milk tests into useful information that can help you improve and manage cheese quality. Dr. Klopfenstein will discuss interpreting somatic cell counts and raw milk bacteria tests, some farm level techniques for monitoring these indices, the causes of abnormal tests, and how to troubleshoot high counts – all of which can influence quality for dairies and cheese rooms.   SPEAKER BIO:  Joe Klopfenstein, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Diplomate of the American Board of Veterinary Practitioners, worked within the dairy industry in Vermont for over 25 years prior to his move to Oregon.  His work has included helping cheesemakers both to improve and monitor their milk quality and understand how animal health and welfare affect milk, and thus cheese, quality. 
• Deep Dive: Managing Cheese Rind Microbes  In this presentation we will look into the diversity of microbes that can be found on bloomy, washed, and natural rind cheeses. In particular, we will discuss findings related to how to control this diversity (environmental changes, starter cultures, etc.) and tips for identifying and fixing defects of cheese rinds (unwanted molds, unstable rinds, strange pigments/textures).  SPEAKER BIO: Dr. Benjamin Wolfe is an assistant professor of microbiology in the Department of Biology at Tufts University. Wolfe holds a B.Sc. in 2003 from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University in 2011.  Between 2021 and 2014 he was postdoctoral researcher in the FAS Center for Systems Biology. In 2014 he established The Wolfe Lab at Tufts.  This lab uses fermented foods and other synthetic microbial communities to study the ecology and evolution of microbiomes. The impact of his and The Wolfe Lab’s research spans across multiple industries – including the cheese industry, medicine, and natural studies fields.

PRICING & REGISTRATION

General Attendee – $60

Video Pass (for access to recorded presentations, for those who couldn’t make the conference) – $55

Vermont Cheese Council members receive 20% off (please reach out for this promo code or look for it in your membership e-news)

Please note that for guilds that assist us with outreach we are offering discounts for their own members.  If you belong to a cheese guild, please ask your guild leadership to see if they are participating in this program. This discount also applies to VIDEO PASS purchases.

We are also offering free conference access for anyone who registers for our online course, The Science of Farmstead Cheese (see next section on this page for more info).

By attending the conference and/or viewing its sessions, you agree to its Terms & Conditions.

*** SPECIAL OFFER WITH THE SCIENCE OF FARMSTEAD CHEESE ONLINE COURSE

For anyone who purchases our Online Course, The Science of Farmstead Cheese, between now and Sunday February 21, we will offer them one complimentary free attendee pass to this conference.  A great discount for those looking for both a fun conference experience and a deeper look at the science of cheesemaking.  (Does not apply with VCC member discount for course)

AN ENORMOUS THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

SILVER LEVEL SPONSORS

SUPPORTER LEVEL SPONSORS

INTERESTED IN JOINING OUR SPONSORS?

Sponsors play an important role in our event, in that they become part of our team by helping to make the event affordable for all who attend. In 2020 cheesemakers were hard-hit by COVID-19, with many seeing sales losses that threatened the sustainability of the artisan cheese industry. Our goal is to offer access to world-class knowledge at an affordable price – and every sponsor who supports us can help with that. We hope you will join us in this effort!

We are offering sponsorship levels for organizations big and small!  If interested in more information, please reach out to info@vtcheese.com.

INTERESTED IN OTHER LEARNING RESOURCES TOO?

Visit our learning resources page…