Comte Scholarship Winner Announced

The winner of the fourth annual Comté Scholarship for American Cheese Society Certified Cheese Professionals™ (ACS CCPs™) has been announced!  Devin Lamma scored the highest points in the blind essay contest and has won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Comté region to explore the area and its culture and to learn about production and the cheese’s history.  A fifteen-year Whole Foods Market veteran as well as a cheese educator, Lamma became an ACS CCP in 2013.  He states, “I am thrilled and delighted to represent the ACS CCPs next year in France. It is my hope to learn the details of the Comté making experience and provide the beauty of the process to my classes in Denver.”
 
Second place went to Malachy Egan, Head Cheesemonger at the Franklin Market Di Bruno Brothers location in Philadelphia, who will receive a special Comté care package.
 
This year’s essay question asked applicants what they would hope to discover if they were to visit the Comté region, as well as how it would benefit their position within the cheese industry. The essays were judged anonymously on the basis of knowledge and creativity by a panel of three renowned cheese experts: Peggy Smith, Board President of the American Cheese Society and Co-Founder of Cowgirl Creamery; Cathy Strange, Global Cheese Buyer of Whole Foods Market; and Max McCalman, Maître Fromager, Author, Speaker, Consultant and Educator.
 
Lamma’s winning essay can be read here!
 
The Certified Cheese Professional™ (CCP) Exam was established by the American Cheese Society in 2012 to encourage high standards of comprehensive cheese knowledge and service for professionals in all areas of the cheese world. The exam is based on the knowledge and skills required to successfully perform cheese-related tasks in jobs across the board.  
 
Made exclusively in the Jura Mountain region of France, Comté is an artisanal cheese with AOC (Controlled Appellation of Origin) and PDO (European Protected Denomination of Origin) designations. Each wheel of Comté reflects a unique terroir, a season of production, and centuries of cheesemaking and affinage traditions.

The Comté Cheese Association – Comité Interprofessionnel de Gestion du Comté (CIGC) – was set up by decree on 11th June 1963. It represents all those who are involved in the production of Comté—dairy farmers, cheesemakers, affineurs—and carries out activities in all fields of interest to the trade, including research and technical issues, economics, information and communications, marketing, law and promotion of the Comté appellation, defense of local traditions and protection of the environment.