On the block

PALMER — About 20 tons of raw milk cheese may be destined for Christmas baskets or the landfill, depending on test results due back this week.

The fate of the blocks of Matanuska Creamery’s raw milk cheese rests on results from the state’s Environmental Health Laboratory in Anchorage. Fifteen samples were tested last week by the state facility and an out-of-state lab used by state officials, said Dr. Robert Gerlach, state veterinarian and the official in charge of the state Division of Environmental Health’s laboratory.

For the dairy farmers whose milk went into the cheese, about $72,000 in unpaid income hinges on the results. That doesn’t include the cost of production, overhead, testing and other expenses occurred by Matanuska Creamery, said Karen Olson, a part-owner in the creamery.

“It’s a huge hit,” Olson said of the financial implications if the cheese fails the test.

The cheddar cheese was made from raw or unpasteurized milk when the dairy first began accepting milk early this year. The first cheeses were packed March 31. Prior to that, area dairy farmers were dumping their milk on their fields because the December 2007 closing of Matanuska Maid Dairy left them no place to send the bulk of their milk.

Later, the creamery made pasteurized cheese. All of the pasteurized cheese has passed state tests.

Before the creamery had its pasteurizers on line so it could begin processing liquid milk products, making raw milk cheese was the only option for using milk from Mat-Su Valley cows. While making cheese from raw milk is a common practice, especially in Europe, Matanuska Creamery’s raw milk cheese has yet to pass state tests saying it is safe to eat, Gerlach said.

Gerlach said the state is using federal Food and Drug Administration guidelines to determine if the cheese is safe. The tests check for levels of E. coli and staph bacteria, and to detect any presence of salmonella or listeria. The state tests done on six samples a month ago showed the presence of listeria monocytogenes in Matanuska Creamery’s raw milk cheese.

Those earlier tests conflict with results the creamery has received from three Outside labs to which the raw milk cheese was sent. Olson said labs in Bellingham, Wash., Palo Alto, Calif., and Green Bay, Wisc., — all recommended as excellent facilities for testing — gave the Matanuska Creamery aged raw milk cheese the OK. But until the state lab says the cheese is edible, it cannot be distributed.

For Olson and the creamery staff, it is very frustrating.

“It strikes me as really strange,” Olson said. “It’s odd to me that people who do all these tremendous numbers of tests differ so radically from the one here.”

Gerlach said the tests may be different because of different methods. Some use a quick scanning test for genetic markers in bacteria. Some tests are more sensitive than others. But until the Matanuska Creamery’s raw milk cheese passes the state test, no other tests will matter. After the creamery has passed inspection on the first several batches of cheese, it can use an independent lab to monitor the quality of most of its cheeses, with periodic state testing.

So far, that first hurdle has been a high one for Matanuska Creamery.

Gerlach said he understands the frustration. He likened it to being given the ingredients list for a cake, combining the ingredients and pulling a pancake out of the oven.

“They’ve followed the process that should have taken care of the problem … but the aging process has not worked for the initial cheese that was tested,” he said. “In some cases the aging does not work to kill the listeria.”

Olson said there have been recent debates whether there should be any raw milk cheese made in the United States, with some Food and Drug Administration officials opposed to the process, even though much of imported cheese is made from raw milk.

“I think we may be caught up in the national dynamic,” Olson said.

Gerlach is supportive of the new creamery. He and his family were among those who bought cheese futures earlier this year. Like others who bought the futures, he accepted pasteurized milk cheese, which was made after the raw milk cheese, in place of the raw milk cheese.

“We’ve been enjoying that cheese for the past several weeks,” Gerlach said.

Olson said 13,000 pounds of cheese were sold as cheese futures. About 6,000 pounds, mostly that bought by mining companies for distribution to food banks, remain to be distributed.

If the state’s results still show listeria, creamery officials will have to decide it they will store the cheese longer in the hope time will kill the bad bacteria. Nothing but time can kill it, Gerlach said.

The longer the cheese ages, the stronger it gets. Olson said she’s not sure how long the cheeses could reasonably be kept waiting for the listeria to die. And if the state is using a test that indicates if there was ever a presence of listeria, there is no hope the cheese will be cleared.

“It will never age out,” she said.

Gerlach said he will be working with Matanuska Creamery to determine what will happen next if tests are not favorable. If there is no hope for the cheese to be l isteria-free, the cheese would be ground up, combined with another substance and disposed of in a landfill.

With a green light, Olson said the cheese could be marketed as a sharp cheese for Christmas.

Gerlach praised the dairy’s efforts and cooperation during the testing.

“They want to put a good product out and they are doing all they can to make it safe to sell,” Gerlach said.

At Matanuska Creamery, staff continues to bottle fluid milk and has made test batches of ice cream. With demand for milk strong, the creamery hasn’t made pasteurized cheese for about two weeks.

Olson concedes the loss of income if the 40,000 pounds of raw milk cheese fail the test will be a heavy financial blow for the farmers and the fledgling creamery.

“We’re just going ahead to see what happens,” Olson said.