Although the days of summer are waning, the first days of fall are guaranteed to bring inspiration, excitement and renewed enthusiasm to everyone who attends the International Dairy Show, September 19-21, in Atlanta.

Non-stop networking, effortless education, dynamic demonstrations, specialty happy hours and nearly 300 exhibiting companies will provide all you need in one show, says IDFA President and CEO Connie Tipton in her new video.

The show is only four weeks away, so register today at www.dairyshow.com! 

Members of the Cheese and Sodium Best Practices Task Force, organized by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy, recently identified best practices and challenges addressing the issue of sodium in cheese, according to the latest post to IDFA's Nutrition Notes blog.

Michelle Matto, IDFA consultant on nutrition and labeling and a member of the task force, discusses how the team addressed one challenge - educating consumers and health professionals about the manufacture and nutrient profile of cheeses - by developing a variety of communication tools.

Read the blog and download the tools here.

When students pick up a carton of flavored milk with their lunches this school year, the majority of the milk will have fewer than 150 calories. After more than five years of reformulations by dairy processors, fat-free and low-fat chocolate milks have 38 percent less added sugar.

Despite some high-profile debates over flavored milk, a recent study of 1,000 moms found that more than half (54 percent) would oppose a ban on chocolate milk in their schools. Read more here.

IDFA members may login in here to download a variety of school milk resources.

For the sixth year in a row, the Milk Processor Education Program will celebrate chocolate milk as The Official Drink of Halloween at retail. New this year, MilkPEP has teamed up with the characters of Charles Schultz to make the Peanuts^TM kids the new faces of chocolate milk. Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and the whole gang will be featured in their Halloween costumes enjoying low-fat chocolate milk.

Milk processors can make the most of this holiday by signing up for the feature incentive program and ordering the Halloween toolkit and point-of-sales materials. Contact info@milkpep.org or 800-945-MILK.

The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy is sponsoring the inaugural U.S. Dairy Sustainability Awards to recognize dairy farms and businesses for practices that deliver outstanding economic, environmental and social benefits and help to advance sustainability in the dairy industry.

Two of the awards, Outstanding Dairy Processing & Manufacturing Sustainability and Outstanding Achievement in Energy, are open to dairy processors, and IDFA will participate in the judging process.

More details and entry forms are available here.

Harmon "Hymie" Schepps died yesterday in Dallas at the age 93. He started the Texas dairy company named for him, Schepps Dairy, in 1942 and sold it to Foremost Dairies in 1985.

After the Knudsen Foods-Foremost bankruptcy a few years later, Schepps Dairy emerged with two other plants to form the foundation for Southern Foods Group under the primary ownership of Schepp's business partner Pete Schenkel. Southern Foods Group grew into a large regional dairy company that was purchased in 2000 by Suiza Foods Company, which merged with Dean Foods the following year.

Schepps will be buried this week in Dallas.

In comments filed Monday, IDFA responded to the Food and Drug Administration's request for information on current industry practices to help the agency develop guidance on preventive controls for food facilities, which are required by the Food Safety Modernization Act. IDFA outlined the industry's current preventive controls and urged FDA not to mandate finished product pathogen testing, saying it would impose considerable costs for companies without adding any public health benefit.

"It is the dairy product manufacturer's responsibility to determine and implement the appropriate verification activities for its preventive controls, which are in turn specific to its facility, products and processes," the comments said. "A one-size-fits-all requirement for finished product testing for pathogens is not appropriate for the dairy industry and should not be required."

Echoing earlier comments submitted jointly with the National Milk Producers Federation, IDFA said pasteurization is the key to assuring the safety of milk and other dairy products. Alkaline phosphatase testing and time and temperature checks are the best methods for verifying that dairy products have been properly pasteurized, IDFA said, not testing finished products for pathogens.

Alkaline phosphatase, an enzyme that is naturally found in milk, is denatured by pasteurization temperatures. If the enzyme is discovered in milk during testing, it can indicate that the milk wasn't properly pasteurized.

The industry also uses temperature recording devices on pasteurization equipment, storage tanks and cleaning systems as verification tools. IDFA noted that the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) lists 15 different equipment tests that must be performed on pasteurization equipment to ensure that it's operating properly.

In addition to being unnecessary, finished product pathogen testing would be impractical for the dairy industry, IDFA said. Most fluid milk is packaged and shipped to retail within 24 hours, but product testing would require processors to hold the product for days pending the results of the tests.

"Holding milk for three or four days would require the expansion of storage capabilities by a factor of three or four. Cost aside, which would be enormous, most plants simply do not have the space to add that kind of storage capacity on site," the comments said.

This is the fifth set of comments that IDFA has submitted to FDA regarding the Food Safety Modernization Act. FDA is accepting comments on different sections of the act to gather input and encourage industry participation prior to its rulemaking process.

• Read the comments on preventive controls and product testing here.

For more information, contact Clay Detlefsen, IDFA vice president of regulatory affairs, at cdetlefsen@idfa.org.

In a recent DairyLine interview, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN) said that he plans to introduce his draft dairy reform legislation "when we get back from the August recess, so sometime around the middle of September, probably." Peterson, ranking member of the House Agriculture Committee, said the U.S. Senate has committed to move on the bill once it moves in the House.

Earlier this month, Peterson announced that Rep. Mike Simpson, a senior Republican from Idaho, one of the nation's largest dairy states, has joined efforts to reform dairy programs.

IDFA believes it is critical that dairy processors continue to voice their opposition to Peterson's draft bill, particularly the Dairy Market Stabilization Program.

"Peterson has said the supply management piece is not 'written in stone,'" said Jerry Slominski, IDFA senior vice president of legislative affairs and economic policy. "Dairy processors must let their elected officials know that they cannot support a plan that will hurt jobs and growth in their districts."

This letter can be quickly and easily sent directly to members of Congress. For personalized assistance, contact Ashley Burch, IDFA assistant director of political programs, at aburch@idfa.org or (202) 220-3534.

Members are also encouraged to join the Policy Reform for Opportunity in Dairy (PRO Dairy) Coalition opposing government-mandated milk supply controls.

To learn more about IDFA's dairy policy proposals and why IDFA opposes the Dairy
Market Stabilization Program, read IDFA Dairy Policy Recommendations: Providing a Path to Growth and Opportunity and visit www.keepdairystrong.com.

Members with questions may contact Slominski at jslominski@idfa.org.