The contest's head judge is Marianne Smukowski, Wis. Center for Dairy Research and the Assistant Head Judge is Dr. Robert Bradley, UW-Madison. Among the category judges are Steve Kapellen of Sargento Foods, Tonya Birkrem of Dean Foods, and Don Tribbey of Danisco.

Judging was to take place Sept. 8-10 and students of Madison Area Technical College Culinary Arts School and UW's dairy program will have the unique opportunity to observe how expert graders from industry, USDA and WDATCP judge dairy products.

As an extra bonus, selected cheese and butter samples will be given to the culinary arts school so the students can create exciting new meals utilizing these products as the main ingredients. These meals will then be brought by the MATC chefs to World Dairy Expo on Sept. 28 and served during the reception at a dairy product auction that evening. Selected ice cream samples will be given to the University of Wisconsin dairy program for evaluation training.