Howard, PA – Goot Essa has been selected as a winner in this year’s American Cheese Society (ACS) competition. According to Goot Essa owner John L. Esh Jr., Goot Essa received two awards after submitting several entries for the competition.
“We are pleased with our showing at ACS this year,” said Esh. “We have built the Goot Essa brand around quality, and when that quality is recognized and celebrated in an international setting, it provides some objective assurance that we are moving ahead on the right path.”
According to ACS website, their competition is a technical and aesthetic evaluation which takes place in June each year. Cheeses made from milk produced in North America, Central America, and South America are eligible for entry, and the cheeses must be available for sale to the general public at least six months prior to the date of the competition. It is a blind competition (evaluators do not know which company produced the cheeses). Judges are food professionals selected from academia and the dairy sciences industry, as well as culture manufacturers, food retailers, food distributors, and members of the food media. This year’s winners were announced and recognized for their expert craftsmanship at the Award Ceremony on Thursday, July 11th at the ACS 2024 Annual Conference in Buffalo, NY.
Goot Essa received two awards for excellence in the 2024 competition. In the Soft-Ripened Cheeses goat’s milk category, the company’s Marn Vom Berg cheese received the third place award, behind cheeses from Quebec and New York. In the American Made/International Style sheep’s milk category, the company’s Felsa Yehr cheese also received third place behind a Vermont cheese which was awarded second place mention. No company received a first-place mention in the International Style sheep’s milk category this year.
Esh expects that the momentum from the ACS wins will help build future markets for Goot Essa cheeses. The company has been increasing staff in recent months to build infrastructure for expansion of their cheese production capabilities. “When you have products that take up to three years to produce, you need to keep optimistic,” Esh said. “We’ve been building our aged cheese inventory in anticipation of this opportunity, and we have the staff in place to assure sufficient production of our shorter-length cheese production cycles. I’m very excited to see what the next months and years bring for Goot Essa.”