Take Advantage of Our Dairy Foods Extension Services

There are many services offered through our Extension Program, the Food Safety Laboratory, and the Expertise of our team that can help your organization, whether it’s to address acute or persistent food safety or quality issues, to prepare for an audit,  to implement or improve continuous improvement or troubleshooting procedures, or to develop improved training programs for a team or for individuals that you want to grow in your organization. We can help you take things off your to-do list in 2021.

The list below encompasses many of the services we encourage businesses to take advantage of. If your organization is interested in any of the services listed below, or more specific support not outlined below, please reach out to Louise Felker at lmf226@cornell.edu at any point, or submit a request through our website. We also encourage individuals and organizations to reach out to us with any questions or issues through our “Ask an Expert” platform. These questions will be directed to the appropriate team member. These services in combination with our workshop programming allow us to equip food businesses with the knowledge and tools to flourish.

• Lab for Molecular Typing: The lab offers a wide variety of technologies to subtype, identify, and characterize microorganisms to the genus, species, subspecies, and subtype level including Pulsed Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS). Services are strictly confidential. We do not submit isolates or patterns to the CDC unless specifically requested by the submitter/customer. A considerable number of companies use our services to enhance their environmental monitoring programs or to help troubleshoot microbiological issues.
• Pathogen Environmental Monitoring Validation Services: We are available to review or assist in the development of your pathogen environmental monitoring programs. We also validate environmental monitoring programs through plant visits with collection of samples; this will help you determine whether your program is designed and implemented correctly to identify any issues you may have; we can also design these visits to represent mock FDA “swabathons”, helping you ensure your company is ready for a visit by the FDA or another regulatory agency.
• Process Authority Review: For those who require a scheduled process to begin processing a dairy food product, our team member Rob Ralyea will review your proposed process for food safety. This process review will then be submitted to your regulatory authority for their approval. We also will refer you to other Cornell process authorities if you need help with non-dairy processes.
• Food Safety Plan Review: Our team members are instructors of both HACCP and Preventive Controls for Human Food curricula, and are qualified to review or assist in developing your facility’s food safety plan. This service is useful for facilities who have an existing plan, are in the process of developing a new plan, or who are modifying their HACCP plan to meet the requirements of a FSMA food safety plan.
• Gap Audit: Gap audits are used to identify areas for improvement in your food safety or quality system, and are a great way to prepare for a GFSI audit. Kimberly Bukowski, who is also an SQF auditor, visits your facility to evaluate both documentation and personnel/operational practices to help identify gaps in your systems.
• On-site consulting: Extension personnel visit and consult with dairy processors to help troubleshoot or improve the food safety and quality of their products. Examples include visits to assess technical issues including quality, spoilage, or food safety concerns, food defense plan review, and special project consultation, and documentation review.
• Milk Quality Improvement Program: Offers targeted fee-for-service microbiological and sensory testing to assist dairy processors with troubleshooting quality issues. Services include testing for groups of spoilage organisms, identification and subtyping, defect identification, and more.
• Sensory Evaluation Center: Services include Consumer Acceptability, Preference, and Discrimination Testing. In addition, the program provides consultations in all matters related to sensory product testing: appropriateness of particular test methods, study sample size, questionnaire design, statistics, and analyses, sample blinding, and serving sizes, to name a few.
• Institute for Food Safety COVID-19 Resources: This website is consistently updated with relevant resources and information for the food industry. Resources include information on upcoming industry office hours, weekly videos, templates and trainings, and updates on laws, regulations, and regulatory guidance.
• On-farm Rapid Response Team: Offers timely assistance to NY dairy processors to troubleshoot farm related quality and safety issues  ​
• Alcaine Research Group (ARG) Dairy Lab: Quality control, waste reduction, and new product development opportunities
• Food Processing Development Laboratory (FPDL): The Cornell Food Processing Development Laboratory (FPDL) is a licensed dairy plant in NY State and offers a unique food product development and manufacturing space that allows individuals and companies to perform research, develop new products, and start new food related businesses. Recognizing the diverse needs of industry, we offer an opportunity to utilize this facility under four different types of arrangements (see flyer here):

• 1. Product Testing: For small scale pilot research projects that can be completed in 100 days or less.
  2. Cheese and Dairy Product Incubator: Designed for companies who do not have an existing facility, the FPDL can be used for initial product development and production.
  3. Cheese and Dairy Product Incubator (Level II): Designed for companies who do not have an existing facility, but have done prior product development or for companies that have an existing facility but require an outside facility for specialized needs.
  4. Contract Manufacturing and Product Development: For small scale manufacturing and pilot production (e.g. identifying processing issues, optimizing processes prior to large scale manufacturing, samples for market research).

If you need help with anything else that is not listed here, please also contact us – it is likely that we have the resources to help you.

2018 Calendar is out! Do you need on-site training at your facility?

We are already 2 weeks into the New Year and our 2018 calendar is becoming full with course options to fill your training needs. There is always something new happening in the dairy manufacturing industry and that means there is always something new to train yourself or employees on. If you have a group of employees to train or are looking for facility-specific training, do not hesitate to reach out to our team.  We offer many of our certificate program courses on-site and our team is willing to coordinate with your plant’s individual needs to put together a workshop that it best for you. Act fast in order to get dates that will work for you! Contact Louise Felker: lmf226@cornell.edu

Introducing Consumer Immersive Experience in Food Texture workshop

By: Alina Stelick

February 13-15, 2018

In the summer of 2013 Wall Street Journal published a story on the importance of texture in developing new food products.  The story highlighted Frito-Lay products and how they were developed to meet the “ideal point” of each of the consumer texture segments they called “chewers,” “crunchers,” “smooshers,” and “suckers.”

The consumer segmentation mentioned above is based on the work by Jackie Beckley and her colleagues at the Understanding & Insights Group (The U&I Group).  Jackie is a seasoned consumer/sensory researcher who has been consulting for Food Industry since the 1980s.  Over many years of doing research, Jackie and her team noticed that consumers were responding differently to different textures.  Some loved the loud crunch of chips, while others preferred chewy brownies to snack on.  They also found that a snack developed for the “crunchers” would not “work” for the “chewers.”  To share their findings with larger audience, in 2016 the U&I Group published the methodology they have developed on determining consumer “mouth behavior” in Food Quality and Preference.

This February Cornell Sensory Evaluation Center is offering an active-learning workshop, Consumer Immersive Experience:  In Food Texture, to highlight the notion of “mouth behavior” and why it is important in product development to a wider industry audience.  The attendees will have an opportunity to profile their personal “mouth behavior” using JBMB® Typing Tool, obtain a technical review of the to-date scientific research and learn about its relevance to their organization by observing “live” consumer research and analyzing the discussion under instructor guidance.  Solid (chips) and semi-solid (yogurts) model food systems will be discussed.  However, the insights would apply across multiple food categories.

If you’re interested in this topic, please consider attending this workshop and register today at

http://bit.ly/CUFoodTexture

For more information, please contact Alina Stelick at ap262@cornell.edu or visit us at

https://blogs.cornell.edu/sensoryevaluationcenter/workshopslearning/

References: 

Chaker, A.M. (2013) Why food companies are fascinated by the way we eat:  Texture is almost as important as taste in new products.  Wall Street Journal, 08/13/13.  Last accessed 01/05/08:  https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-food-companies-are-fascinated-by-the-way-we-eat-1376434311

Jeltema, M., Beckley, J., Vahalik, J.  (2016)  Food texture assessment and preference based on Mouth Behavior.  Food Quality and Preference, 52, 160-171.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodqual.2016.04.010

Current Understanding of the Relationship Between Raw Milk Quality and Processed Dairy Product Quality

By: Sarah Muphy

The dairy team at Cornell recently published a comprehensive review in the Journal of Dairy Science, describing current understanding of the relationships between raw milk quality and processed dairy product quality (Murphy, S., N. Martin, D. Barbano, and M. Wiedmann. 2016. Influence of Raw Milk Quality on Processed Dairy Products: How do Raw Milk Quality Test Results Relate to Product Quality and Yield. J. Dairy Sci. 99:10128-10149). This article can be accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.3168/jds.2016-11172.

This review covers a range of studies demonstrating that raw milk quality influences the quality of processed dairy products. The authors discuss research needs and emphasize the increasing importance of raw milk quality testing for levels of specific types of bacteria, offering an evidence-based perspective on the merits of investing in quality.

Key insights include:

* High quality raw milk has a positive impact on processed product quality and manufacturing efficiencies for dairy products including: cheese, pasteurized fluid milks, high-heat fluid milks, yogurt and cultured dairy products, and milk powders.

* Premium incentive payments are currently based on raw milk somatic cell and bacteria count levels below regulatory public health-based limits; other countries are steering the industry (e.g., the Netherlands) by offering farmers quality incentives for low levels of spore-formers in raw milk. Will the United States catch on?