Long weekends and cheese rolling

In a lot of countries, there was a day off on Monday. Memorial Day in the US, a bank holiday in the UK and Whit Monday in Germany. There was also the annual cheese rolling event down Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire here in the UK. A Canadian woman, Delaney Irving, won the women’s event, having been knocked unconscious as she chased the cheese down the hill. Matt Crolla, from Manchester, UK won the first race. It is an event that attracts people from all over the world, but as Crolla noted, when asked by the BBC if he had trained for it, “I don’t think you can train for it, can you? It’s just being an idiot.” (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-65748124) 

The prize is a 3kg Double Gloucester cheese wheel, I assume. Plenty of cheese on toast for the future for the winners. 

Meanwhile, work is continuing on our Dairy Industries Expo in Harrogate, 4-5 October. We will not risk people’s health by asking them to roll down hills after a cheese there, but instead aim for the participants to interact and communicate their dairy best practice to each other (on a level surface) in our halls. 

Our exhibitors have plenty to say about what’s new in the dairy industry and Harrogate is a charming, very interesting place. It has a spa for those inclined, a famous tearoom (Betty’s, Bettys.co.uk) and is in heart of one of the UK’s dairylands, near Yorkshire Dama Cheese. The Harrogate Convention Centre is right in the middle of the  town and the historical Royal Hall nearby will also be open to explore on 4 October. 

It promises to be action-packed and informative, with the Society of Dairy Technology’s annual meeting being held on the 4th at our show, as well as having our sister publication, Confectionery Production, on-site with its own conference. As dairy and confectionery sometimes cross paths on the ingredients side, it will be a worthwhile group meeting. Counting the days!  

For more information on stand enquiry, please reach out to Samantha Bull – [email protected] or check out www.dairyindustriesexpo.com

• Suzanne Christiansen, editor, Dairy Industries International.
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