SCA Webinars | Specialist Cheesemakers Association

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For Webinar Queries and Booking Forms, please contact the SCA

PAST WEBINARS

SCA Webinar - Introducing the SCA Assured Code of Practice, Edition 3

The Specialist Cheesemakers Association (SCA) hosted webinar introducing the new Edition 3 of the Assured Code of Practice, launched in November 2025.

Edition 3 reflects extensive collaboration between the SCA Technical Committee and our Primary Authority Partner, Cornwall Council, and remains the cornerstone of our shared approach to regulatory compliance and best practice in artisan cheesemaking. The session will outline key updates, including revisions to HACCP guidance, new advice on maturation practices, and refreshed microbiological recommendations.

Led by Bronwen Percival, Head of the SCA Technical Committee, the hour-long webinar included time for questions.

SCA Listeria Swabbing Webinar (Thursday 25 September)

The SCA Technical Committee are running a webinar on Listeria Swabbing on Thursday 25th September 2025 from 1.00 to 2.30 pm . The webinar will be hosted by Marissa Schwoch from the SCA Technical Committee and will explain the importance of having a robust Listeria swabbing plan for your dairy, how and where to swab, and what action to take if you find Listeria.

SCA Online Cheesemaking Clinic with Ivan Larcher (7 July 2025)

The next SCA Online Cheesemaking Clinic featuring Ivan Larcher of The Cheese School in Castlemaine will be held on 7 July 2025 from 3.00 – 4.30 pm. This 1.5-hour workshop provides a valuable opportunity to have your technical questions answered by one of the most respected figures in the field.

If you would like to attend, please complete a booking form and send it to the SCA at info@specialistcheesemakers.co.uk. Bookings will close one week before the session, so please book early. A small joining fee of £35 (+VAT) per person is payable to the SCA. A ticket must be purchased for every individual who attends and an individual e-mail address supplied for each attendee. An invoice will be forwarded upon receipt of your booking form. The link to join the workshop will be forwarded following receipt of payment.

SCA Webinar on Fair Dealing Obligations (Milk) Regulations: Are your milk contracts legal?

New regulations are set to come into force on 9th July this year, by which time ALL contracts between dairy processors and farmers must be compliant with the new rules. The Agricultural Supply Chain Adjudicator (ASCA) Richard Thompson will oversee conformity to the law and any arbitration of disputes in the early stages. He has the power to fine processors 1% of their turnover for persistent non-compliance.

If you have agreements, written or otherwise, with farmers to supply your business with milk, this FREE webinar is for you. Are you compliant? If not, how can you become so?

Speakers:

Rod Addy, Director General, Provision Trade Federation (PTF)
Michael Masters, Head of Milk Supplies & Operations, Barbers Farmhouse Cheesemakers

Listeria - SCA Workshop (Thursday 3rd April 2025). Join Us for a Hands-On Workshop: Managing Listeria Risks in Artisan Cheesemaking

Are you an artisan cheesemaker looking to protect your products and customers from the risks of Listeria monocytogenes? Join our in-person workshop to learn how to safeguard your operations and ensure the highest standards of food safety. This interactive session will cover everything from understanding the discovery and behaviour of Listeria to identifying the various risks associated with distinct cheese types, as well as tips on implementing proactive strategies to reduce the risk of contamination.

This workshop is also a rare opportunity to hear directly from fellow producers who have successfully navigated Listeria challenges in their own environments. This experience-sharing will give you valuable insights into practical solutions for monitoring, testing, and responding to potential contamination. When you attend this course, you will walk away with actionable knowledge on how to prevent, detect, and manage Listeria in your facility, ensuring your products are safe and your business is compliant with food safety regulations.

The workshop will be hosted by Harvey & Brockless at their main site in London.

If you are interested in attending please contact SCA for the booking form and flier.

Using Neogen® Petrifilm® Technology for On-Site Testing of Indicator Organisms - SCA Webinar (Wednesday, 15 January 2025, 3-4:30pm) Join us for a free to SCA members webinar on Using Neogen® Petrifilm® Technology for On-Site Testing of Indicator Organisms.

Petrifilm® Plates offer a promising new way for cheesemakers and raw drinking milk producers to monitor important indicator organisms—such as coliforms, non-toxigenic E. coli, and total bacterial count—in their raw milk directly on-site, with results available in as little as 24 hours (test dependent) and for a fraction of the cost of contract laboratory testing. This session will introduce how Petrifilm works, the practicalities of testing, and how to interpret results to aid in timely problem detection and troubleshooting. We’ll also cover how Petrifilm can complement traditional contract lab testing, and the limits of what can be tested in-house.

Representatives from Neogen®, the manufacturer of Petrifilm, will walk participants through the setup required and demonstrate how this modest investment in infrastructure can help producers enhance their approach to quality control and safety. In addition, we will hear from producers who are currently using Petrifilm who will tell us about their experience of implementing them on-farm and what they’ve learned.

SCA members will not need to book a place on this webinar or pay a joining fee. Please contact Diana Axby for the link to join.

Clean-In-Place (CIP) - SCA Webinar (25 November 2024)

The SCA's webinar on Clean-In-Place (CIP), Monday 25 November 2024 from 10.00 – 11.00 am will be hosted by Kerry Newton from the SCA Technical Committee.

CIP is the cleaning of plant or pipework without dismantling or opening the equipment and with little or no involvement of the operator. Systems can be fully automatic but with smaller companies, they are often semi-automatic or completely manual.

Visual inspection and swabbing of enclosed pipes and tanks can usually not be done or sometimes not at all. As establishing a visual and microbial standard of clean is critical to food safety, understanding the correct design and management of CIP systems is essential.

CIP is a complex subject, which is often not well understood. The webinar will aim to deliver a good understanding of the basic principle of CIP, together with the importance of design, maintenance and management. Common problems will be highlighted. Best ways to validate and verify the effectiveness of cleans will be discussed. Open discussion encouraged.

To book your place, please complete a booking form and send it to the SCA at info@specialistcheesemakers.co.uk. Bookings will close one week before the webinar, so please book early. A small joining fee of £20 (+VAT) is payable to the SCA. A ticket must be purchased for every individual who attends and an individual e-mail address supplied for each attendee. An invoice will be forwarded upon receipt of your booking form. The link to join the webinar will be forwarded following receipt of payment. A recording of the webinar will be made available for a limited period after the event.

SCA Traceability Webinar (3 September 2024)

The SCA Technical Committee are running a webinar on ‘Traceability’ on Tuesday 3 September 2024 from 2.30 – 3.30 pm. This webinar aims to look at what traceability is and how to implement traceability in small and medium businesses, explain why it’s important and what the legal requirements are. We will also look at how to meet industry and SALSA requirements regarding traceability, the difference between traceability and recall, review why/how traceability fails and to give ‘top tips’ for good traceability systems, with time at the end dedicated for Q&A’s.

SCA Listeria Swabbing Webinar (Thursday 20 June 24)

The SCA Technical Committee's webinar on Listeria Swabbing Thursday 20 June from 2.30-4.00 pm. will be a repeat of the SCA webinar on this subject held in February 2023.
Hosted by Marissa Schwoch from the SCA Technical Committee, the webinar will explain the importance of having a robust Listeria swabbing plan for your dairy, how and where to swab, and what action to take if you find Listeria. There will be a Q&A session at the end. To book your place, please complete a booking form and send it to the SCA at info@specialistcheesemakers.co.uk. Bookings will close one week before the webinar, so please book early.

A small joining fee of £20 (+VAT) is payable to the SCA. A ticket must be purchased for every individual who attends and an individual e-mail address supplied for each attendee. An invoice will be forwarded upon receipt of your booking form. The link to join the webinar will be forwarded following receipt of payment. A recording of the webinar will be made available for a limited period after the event.

Being Prepared for a Crisis - SCA Webinar (Tuesday 30 April 2024)

A recall or food safety scare is every cheesemaker’s nightmare. While a well-developed, HACCP-based food safety management system can go a long way toward reducing risk, having strong crisis management systems to rely on and knowing some basic principles to observe can help reduce worry and stand producers in good stead should the worst occur.

Join guest speakers Toby Hampton (ETS Public Relations), Adam Williams (NFU Mutual) and Michael Lilly (Team Leader - Product Recall - CFC Underwriting) for a webinar about two aspects of crisis preparedness and management. Toby will walk participants through handling a crisis start to finish from a Public Relations perspective, while Adam and Michael will talk about insurance considerations, the difference between product liability insurance and product recall insurance, best practice in coordinating a claim, and key things to consider when choosing cover.The webinar will last for approximately 1 hour, with time for general Q&A afterwards. A small joining fee of £20 (+VAT) is payable to the SCA. A ticket must be purchased for every individual who attends and an individual e-mail address supplied for each attendee. An invoice will be forwarded upon receipt of your booking form.

Managing the Risk of STEC - SCA Webinar - Monday 25 March 2024

In this special SCA-members-only webinar, we give a brief introduction to STEC and how it relates to common indicator organisms like coliforms in milk and E coli in milk and cheese. While STEC testing for milk and cheese is currently only available through government laboratories, a number of commercial testing services are on the horizon. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the test method, and how can testing (for indicator organisms and/or pathogenic STEC) be used by producers as part of their food safety management systems?

The research from France, where several outbreaks of STEC have been linked to cheese in recent years, suggests that specific animal handling and milking hygiene practices can play an important role in reducing both the incidence of STEC within farm animals and the likelihood—if it’s present in the herd—of its transfer to milk. The survival (or die-off) of STEC strains in different cheese types will be discussed, as will whether anything can be done during the make and maturation to reduce risk still further. Finally we’ll introduce some of the areas targeted for further research into controlling this organism.

RMPA In-house hygiene indicator testing webinar - 19th January 2024

We are delighted to be able to offer you the chance to attend a webinar by the Raw Milk Producers Association (RMPA) on their In-house hygiene indicator testing by Cat Berge.