ICE CREAM just after breakfast on a miserable 17-degree wet winter's day hardly seems appealing, but cheese and dairy judges for the Perth Royal Show love it.
On Tuesday that is what Mark Livermore, from Wauchope near Port Macquarie in northern NSW, Ros Garstone, Cowaramup and Celeste Kerkhofs, Perth, were doing - judging ice cream in the dairy pavilion.
After the ice cream they were tasting dairy desserts and finishing the day off with glasses of milk.
Another team of three judges was tasting gelato and a third team determining which of the winning cheeses judged the day before, along with chocolate and yoghurt, would win the champion cheese title at this year's Perth Royal Dairy Show.
Although a part of the Royal Show, which runs September 24 to October 1, the dairy show is judged well beforehand with winners to be announced at the annual dairy dinner at Claremont showgrounds next Wednesday.
Dairy products are scored out of a maximum of 20 points for composition, flavour, presentation and being true to label, with gold medals awarded to products scoring 18 or more.
Chocolate is scored out of 100.
The three ice cream judges on Tuesday were adamant that milk is the hardest dairy product to judge.
"But with a bit of practice you can actually determine which processor the milk came from just on taste," Mr Livermore said.
He is chief cheese and dairy judge at the Sydney Royal Easter Show and has been judging cheese and dairy products for about 30 years.
"I grew up in a dairy region, I've worked in the dairy industry all my life. I ended up with the NSW dairy authority grading cheese for export," Mr Livermore said.
He admits to having a liking for pungent, bitey "blue" cheeses.His fellow judges also have dairy connections.
Ms Garstone teaches cheese making at some South West secondary colleges and with her husband runs a dairy farm milking 220 cows.
She has been judging for about three years at the Royal Show, regional shows including Busselton and Margaret River, and has judged at Queensland's Royal Show, the Ekka, in Brisbane.
She likes judging any dairy product and has no favourite.
Ms Kerkhofs works for European Foods Wholesalers distributing dairy products and has also been judging for three years at the Perth and regional WA shows.
She has a soft spot for white mould cheeses such as camembert and brie.
Chief cheese and dairy judge Russell Smith said his team would judge a total of about 400 entries across all categories this year from local and interstate producers and manufacturers.
"That's about the same as last year, but we had a big jump in entries last year so we've maintained that level which is pleasing," Mr Smith said.
"The quality is fantastic, for example in the champion cheese category there were any one of half a dozen cheeses that could have been champion."
"It is also good to see some of the premium manufacturers from the eastern states submitting entries.
"It helps our WA manufacturers when their product competes with and is compared favourably with that of the recognised market leaders," he said.
Mal Gill
Wool and dairy writer for Farm Weekly.
Wool and dairy writer for Farm Weekly.
