Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Susan Duncan, Dairy and Sensory Evaluation

Bill Eigel,                Food Biochemistry

Joe Marcy:               Food Processing

Merle Pierson: Food Microbiology

 Sean O’Keefe: Food Chemistry

Susan Sumner:   Food Safety

Walter Hartman:    Dairy Plant Manager whartman@vt.edu

Kim Waterman:  Dairy Chemistry    Kwater@vt.edu

Brian Yaun: Microbiology byaun@vt.edu           Phone: (540) 231-8697

updates at Virginia tech

Tech Names New Dean of Agriculture

    Dr. Sharron Quisenberry was named dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences on May 20.  Dr. Quisenberry was dean of the College of Agriculture and director of the Montana Agriculture Experiment Station at Montana State University.  Prior to that, she was head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. 

FST 35^th Anniversary Celebration

     September 6^th will mark our 35^th year as a department.   The FST 35^th anniversary celebration will be held on September 6^th from 10:30 am – 1:30 pm at the FST building.  It promises to be a big weekend at Tech with Farm and Family Showcase at Kentland Farm and Ag Alumni Homecoming going on also.  The Ag Homecoming Dinner will be held at Kentland Farm at 5:30 pm on the 5^th, and Virginia Tech will play football against James Madison University at 1 pm on the 6^th.

3^rd Annual Farm & Family Showcase

     The third annual Farm and Family showcase will be held Thursday, September 4^th through Saturday, September 6^th at Virginia Tech’s Kentland Farm. Featured displays, demonstrations and seminars cover agricultural production, business and technology; poultry; environmental stewardship and natural resources; livestock; pasture management; food quality and safety; chemistry; entomology; plant diseases; home landscaping, horticulture and vegetable gardening; lawn care; value-added food products; birds and bats and much more.     Families will enjoy a cornfield maze, an aquaculture exhibit, a display of award-winning 4-H projects, sheep shearing and sheep dog demonstrations, archery and air-rifle ranges, egg incubation, butterfly gardens, an interactive fishing simulator, a live bird display, oxen demonstrations, pony rides, an Arabian horse drill team and draft horse working demonstrations.

     Kentland Farm is located along the New River several miles west of VA Tech’s campus in Blacksburg.  The 1,700-acre farm is the university’s newest and largest agricultural research and teaching center.  Last year, the Farm and Family Showcase was attended by more than 38,000 people.  

HOT TOPICS AND DAIRY ISSUES

Health Conscious Consumers Demand New Ice Cream

     CHICAGO - A resurgence of “diet” frozen desserts is expected as a result of reformulation to improve the taste of reduced-fat, -sugar, and -calorie products. Consumers' continuing trend to seek indulgences without adding calories is expected to play a significant role.  No-sugar and no-sugar added products are positioned to attract consumers affected by diabetes and are predicted to become a hot-selling category among frozen desserts.  Americans spend $33 billion annually on weight-reduction products and services that include diet foods, products and programs. Targeting these consumers, most major frozen dessert manufacturers have recently introduced health-conscious products with favorable results. For some, it's helped bump sales by nearly 20% when the retail ice cream market is increasing at a rate of about 2%.  Keeping just enough cream in the product seems to be part of the new products' winning formula. Another key is marketing frozen desserts with vastly varying levels of reduced-fat, -calories and -sugar.  The U.S. ice cream market accounted for over $4 billion in supermarket sales in 2001. An additional $2 billion was spent last year for frozen novelties like sandwiches and pops, a surge of over 7%.  Ice cream alternatives like frozen yogurt and sherbets are selling about $500 million a year, showing that ice cream products are still the bigger attraction.

Dairy Farmers Unhappy with New Ice Cream Standards

Washington, DC – The ice cream industry says new standards would make it easier to develop new products, but dairy farmers feel that ice cream manufacturers want to loosen standards on how the product is made.  Ice cream companies are asking the Food and Drug Administration to let them make their products with more whey.  Government approval of their proposal will give them more flexibility to make a variety of products and meet consumer demand. 

Until now, some processors have shunned whey because of its reputation for giving some foods a rancid flavor.  The National Milk Producers Federation, which represents 60,000 dairy farmers, says ice cream makers are running the risk of ruining the taste of their products by switching to whey as a cheaper substitute for nonfat milk. 

“Descriptions associated with flavor problems stemming from the increased use of whey proteins include ‘salty’ and ‘graham cracker-like’,” the federation’s president, Jerry Kozak, wrote to the FDA.  Currently, the FDA requires processors to make ice cream with 10% nonfat milk solids, including a small amount of whey. 

“If [you] set a low common denominator, then someone will do that,” said Rob Byrne, vice president of regulatory affairs for the Arlington, VA-based farmers federation.  “You can’t provide consumers the assurance that that’s not going to happen.”

Ice cream processors maintain that more whey in their products will not change the nutritional content or taste.  Susan Ruland, a spokeswoman for the International Ice Cream Association (IICA), said that manufacturers are producing whey proteins that do not taint foods with bad flavors.  In the past, whey was produced by heating milk.  “Now they just use a filter,” Ruland said.  “The off-flavors that used to be an issue are not an issue anymore.”

What is not in dispute is the economic impact of the FDA’s decision.  There is no question that whey is a better bargain than nonfat dry milk.  Dry whey costs about 15 cents per pound, while nonfat dry milk is about 80 cents per pound, the Agriculture Department says. 

Dairy farmers, already seeing some of the lowest prices in years for their product, fear that the new standards will allow makers to substitute whey for nonfat dry milk.  “If you’re not using milk and cream to go into ice cream, then you’re using other ingredients, and then, basically we’re going to have a flood on the market [of dry milk],” Bryne said.  Because farmers continue to produce more milk at levels far outpacing the demand for it, the government, as the buyer of last resort, is stockpiling mountains of dry milk and finding it hard to even give it away for such things as relief programs overseas.  The federation argues that if the FDA sides with manufacturers, the dairy sector could see annual losses of $100 million.

The $20 billion-a-year ice cream industry maintains that a change in standards by the FDA would make it easier to develop more new products along the lines of ethnic flavors, candy combinations, sorbets and sherbets that have been a key to its growth.

For more informationon the Internet: National Milk producers Federation:  www.nmpf.org