Contact: Sammy McDavid
The dairy products judging team at Mississippi State again is the "big cheese" and the student organization has a cracker barrel of new awards to prove it.
The university recently finished first overall and first in four of six judging categories at the 78th annual International Collegiate Dairy Products Evaluation Contest in Chicago. A total of 19 school teams, including two from Canada and one from South Africa, took part in the annual competition.
MSU has won the top award five previous times this decade.
The contest involves the judging of eight samples each of six types of dairy products: ice cream, milk, cottage cheese, Cheddar cheese, butter, and strawberry yogurt. After official industry judges had evaluated and scored the samples, the students were asked for their evaluations of the same products.
Winners had scores most closely matching the judges' opinions.
"This year's Mississippi State team was truly outstanding and had tremendous scores," said Charles H. White. "In addition to being named first overall, our students finished first in the cottage cheese, ice cream, milk and butter, and were third in Cheddar cheese and yogurt."
White, professor and head of MSU's food science and technology department, shares team coaching duties with departmental research assistant Julie C. Wilson. As a result of the team's achievements, they were named 1999 Coaches of the Year.