Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

UPDATES AT VIRGINIA TECH

2009 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest

Like the wine industry, the nation's cheese industry hosts com­petitions among makers to determine the finest products by variety. The United States Championship Cheese Contest is the industry's main event – the largest, longest-running cheese competition in America . Cheese­makers often tout medals from this competition on product labels.

The United States Championship Cheese Contest, held only in odd-numbered years, returns to Green Bay , WI , after a decade in other locations. Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association partnered with the Green Bay Packers to display the contest on March 17, 18, and 19 in the spacious Atrium at Lambeau Field.

Visitors saw 24 cheese evaluation experts from around the nation working in teams of two. Each team evaluated a class of cheeses such as blue-veined cheeses and used a detailed numeric system to select gold, silver and bronze medallists in each class. This is a ‘technical' cheese judging, meaning that judges are seeking minor defects in flavor, texture, body and appearance. These defects are subtracted from a perfect score of 100 points. A gold medal cheese or butter will score in the 98 to 99 point range.

Walter Hartman, Dairy Plant Manager for the Department of Food Science and Technology at VA Tech , was chosen by the Association to be one of the 24 judges at the Contest. Congratulations Walter! This is quite a distinction. He joined cheese experts from other universities, government and USDA cheese graders, cheese buyers and cheese quality control personnel. All evaluators have spent years learning the flavor and texture profile of a broad variety of cheeses. Each cheese entry is visually examined and sampled with a cheese knife or “trier.” Samples are mashed in the hand to determine body, sniffed for aroma, tasted to pick up dozens of potential defects and even “thumped” to listen for eye (hole) development.

Cheese companies large and small from 32 states entered cheeses and butters in this year's competi­tion. At 1,336 entries, it's the largest contest in U.S. history. Entries included everything from farmstead goat and sheep milk cheeses to mass-produced blocks of mild cheddar cheese; from two-ounce buttons of soft-ripened cheese to 200-pound blocks of Swiss.

In each of the 64 classes in the competition, cheesemakers and buttermakers from across the U.S. earned gold, silver or bronze medals for achieving the highest scores in their respective classes. On the last day of the contest, the entire group of judges examined the gold medal cheeses a second time. The highest scoring cheese in the final, Championship Round is named U.S. Champion Cheese.

The Championship Round of the competition drew hundreds of spectators and multiple media outlets to the Lambeau Field Atrium. The judges worked three hours to taste and evaluate all 60 cheeses in the final round. As the audience watched the experts, professional cheese carver Troy Landwehr completed a life-sized bust of legendary Green Bay Packer coach Vince Lombardi carved in 640 pounds of cheddar cheese.

A Wisconsin cheese, SarVecchio Parmesan produced by John Griffiths at Sartori Foods in Antigo, Wisconsin , captured U.S. Champion honors. The Champion SarVecchio Parmesan was a 20-pound wheel of cheese that had taken gold in the Parmesan category. The First Runner Up to the U.S. Champion was also a wheel of cheese – a hard goat's milk cheese named Classico produced by cheesemakers at Tumalo Farms in Bend , Oregon . McCadam Cheese and cheesemaker Pat Whalen, based in Chateaugay , New York , earned Second Runner Up honors for a medium-aged cheddar in a 40-pound block.

Dozens of gold medal cheeses from the 2009 Contest will be auctioned on Wednesday evening, April 22, 2009 at the La Crosse Center Arena in La Crosse , Wisconsin . The auction supports the non-profit contest as well as student scholarships and a Member Education Initiative offered by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association. For news coverage, photos and additional information, www.uschampioncheese.org/ .

HOT TOPICS AND CURRENT ISSUES

Functional Polysaccharides as Edible Coatings for Cheese

Synthetic materials used as cheese coatings may be ending. New research from Portugal and Brazil suggests that natural polysaccharides may serve as edible coatings.

Researchers studied three different polysaccharides from non-traditional sources to coat cheese: Galactomannan from Gleditsia triacanthos , chitosan, and agar from Glacilaria birdiae .

A coating consisting of Galactomannan (1.5%) from Gleditsia triacanthos, 2% glycerol and 0.5% cornoil was found to give the best cheese coating properties and prevented mold growth, according to findings in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (JAFC) . Oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production by the cheese showed that the edible coating decreased the cheese's respiration rate compared to uncoated cheese.

The cheese studied was a cylindrical yellow, semi-hard cheese that is sold unpackaged, but is covered with a synthetic and antibiotic coating. Under normal storage conditions, it undergoes excessive water loss.

Tests included how the coatings affected the ‘wetability' of the cheese, and how much water, oxygen, and carbon dioxide diffusion occurred. The coatings were made from the polysaccharide, glycerol as a plasticiser, and corn oil.

Lead author Miguel Cerqueira from the Universidade do Minho in Portugal said that their work could serve as a guide for the use of new coatings and future new materials for this purpose. Further work needs to be done to confirm the suitability of this coating to increase the shelf life of cheese after ripening and at different storage temperatures.

Source : Cerqueira, M.A., I.M. Lima, B.W. Souza, J.A. Teixeira, R.A. Moreira, and A.A. Vicente. 2009. Functional Polysaccharides as Edible Coatings for Cheese . Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry . 57:4, pp 1456-1462.

Green Microbiocide

A new microbiocide for food processing facilities called Excelyte is more effective, greener, safer and cheaper than conventional products, according to manufacturer, Integrated Environmental Technologies It is a highly effective, pH neutral biocide solution that is non toxic to humans and animals. It is a hundred times more effective at destroying mircroorganisms than bleach . It is effective against a range of microbial organisms including bacteria, viruses, fungi and microbial spores.

The active ingredient, hypochlorous acid, is a naturally occurring molecule synthesized from salt and water. When exposed to environmental conditions, the solution degrades quickly leaving no ecological footprint.