It’s what you’ve been waiting for. The winners of New York State’s 2024 Dairy Products Competition. Stewart’s Shops was honored with gold for the best fluid milk, chocolate milk, and flavored milk categories, with Dygert Farms Creamery earning silver in fluid milk. Additionally, Byrne Dairy took first place in the Chocolate Ice Cream category and the Open Class category for its Grasshopper Pie ice cream. Stewart’s Shops and Byrne Dairy took home gold and silver respectively for their vanilla ice creams, and Churchtown Dairy of Hudson, New York, was selected as grand champion for its Coperthwaite cheese. A full list of the 2024 Dairy Products Competition winners is available here.
The Dairy Products Competition celebrates New York’s dairy industry and its finest dairy producers and processors from across the state with gold or silver honors, or an Award of Excellence. This year there were 176 entries across 26 categories, including fluid milk, various types of cheeses, sour cream, yogurt, dips, cottage cheese, and for the second year ever, ice cream.
Other highlights from the competition include:
- HP Hood (Arkport, Vernon and Lafargeville plants) earned the most medals overall, with a total of 13. They received the gold in the Full Fat, Low Fat, and Non Fat Cottage Cheese categories, as well as in the Sour Cream, Dairy Dips, and Plain Yogurt categories.
- Great Lakes Cheese from Adams won gold for its “Super” Aged Cheddar and Low Moisture Mozzarella
- BelGioioso Cheese was honored with gold in the Mozzarella (non-pizza), Ricotta, Flavored Natural Cheese, and Open Class Cheese, with a total of seven medals overall.
- Agri-Mark, Inc. brought home gold for its Sharp Cheddar, Aged Cheddar, and Cold Pack/Process Cheese, in addition to several other honors for a total of six medals.
- Kraft Heinz earned all three medals in a single category, winning gold, silver, and the Award of Excellence for the Cream Cheese/Neufchatel category.
- Cheese classes were evaluated by 12 expert judges, including several representatives from the Department of Agriculture and Markets, Cornell University, and Steve Funk from Nelson Jameson. This year, Valerie Catlin from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets’ Division of Milk Control was the chief judge. Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Milk Quality Improvement Program judged the fluid milk and ice cream portions of the competition.
The winners of this year’s competition will be honored, as has been tradition, during a special awards ceremony on Dairy Day at The Great New York State Fair. A video presentation highlighting all the award-winning products of the 2024 Dairy Products Competition will be on display in the Dairy Products Building earning a total of eight medals – ranking second highest overall in the competition.
