What does it take to identify an award-winning dairy product?
Behind the medals and trophies at the Royal Adelaide Show Dairy Products Competition is a rigorous judging process involving experienced judges, careful preparation, blind tasting and detailed assessment. And behind the products themselves are the food safety systems, manufacturing practices and attention to detail that help producers deliver quality consistently.
For Dairy Products Committee Chair Matt Cooper, that connection is fundamental. “Food safety is the foundation of quality. Effective food safety systems help ensure products are manufactured consistently and to specification every time,” Matt said.
The competition celebrates excellence across Australia’s dairy industry, recognising quality, innovation, consistency and craftsmanship while giving producers an opportunity to benchmark their products against their peers.
Preparing for judging
The process begins well before a judge tastes the first product. Chief Judge Gina Dal Santo says producers are provided with the competition schedule, with classes divided into different product types. Once entries arrive for judging, stewards carefully prepare and cover the samples so they can be presented without identification.
Products are then served in a considered order to protect judges’ palates and make the assessment as fair as possible.
The judging panels themselves are carefully constructed. Gina aims to retain experienced judges while also creating opportunities for new judges to develop their skills. Judges are matched to categories where their knowledge and experience can be put to best use, while less experienced judges are paired with those who can help build their understanding.
Before judging begins, the panels also undertake calibration, assessing several products together to make sure they are applying the criteria consistently and to identify individual sensitivities to characteristics such as bitterness or salt.
Matt says the extensive planning, strict stewarding procedures and blind judging process are critical to the competition’s credibility.
“Blind judging gives producers confidence that results are based purely on product merit,” he says.
“A rigorous judging process ensures consistency, transparency and fairness, allowing producers to genuinely benchmark their products against industry standards.”
More than a matter of taste
While taste inevitably involves sensory judgement, judges are not simply deciding which product they personally prefer.
Products are scored out of 20, with 10 points allocated to flavour, six to texture and four to appearance.
Judges assess whether the flavour and aroma are true to the product and its category, along with characteristics such as freshness, mouthfeel and overall appearance. They are also trained to identify faults. The three judges assessing a product must ultimately score within two points of each other.
Those faults can sometimes reveal a lot about what has happened before a product reaches the judging table.
Milk that tastes stale or oxidised may indicate ageing or storage issues. A sandy or gritty texture in ice cream can point to problems with the stabiliser or emulsifier mix, while iciness may indicate an issue with freezing. In white mould cheese, rind and texture can provide clues about ripening and pH management.
That is where the connection between food safety, manufacturing practices and quality becomes particularly clear.
Gina says good systems and processes help producers create a safe, consistent product. Food safety and quality cannot be considered in isolation because a missed process or shortcut can ultimately affect the finished product and lead to consumer complaints.
Seeing the competition from both sides
Barossa Valley Cheese Company owner Victoria McClurg experienced the judging process from a new perspective in 2026 when she became a judge for the first time.
Victoria’s business has entered the competition for more than 20 years, and she had previously spent several years as a steward. Her background as a winemaker also gave her experience in sensory evaluation and blind tasting before she moved into cheesemaking.
Sitting on the judging panel reinforced something Victoria already understood as a dairy processor.
“With dairy, it shines through. If you’re not meeting food safety standards, it comes through in the product,” she says. “If you don’t have a clean, well-maintained, orderly environment, it’s very hard to make good quality cheese.”
Strong procedures also create consistency, she says, rather than producing an exceptional product one week that cannot be replicated the next.
For Victoria, judging also provides a rare opportunity to look beyond the walls of her own business. “As a small producer, you tend to live in your factory walls and not look outward enough,” she says.
With products from large manufacturers and small artisan businesses assessed on the same playing field, the competition gives producers an independent benchmark for their own standards.
Feedback that drives improvement
Victoria also experienced the value of independent assessment as an entrant this year, with Barossa Valley Cheese Company’s Barossa Luma named Champion SA Cheese and Barossa La Dame and Barossa Feta receiving gold medals.
For producers, the competition provides an opportunity to have commercially available products assessed against consistent criteria and benchmarked alongside others in their category. The judges’ feedback can highlight strengths as well as areas where further refinement may improve quality and consistency.
Victoria says that process of benchmarking is valuable regardless of the result. It encourages producers to look critically at their products, maintain high standards and continue improving, reinforcing the broader role the competition plays in lifting quality across the dairy industry.
Gina says the standard of entries has risen significantly over time, alongside greater innovation and growth in categories such as yoghurt and ice cream. Importantly, she can see producers taking judges’ feedback on board.
Matt agrees that a medal is only part of the value. “Feedback is a gift, whether it is positive or negative,” he says. “Independent feedback provides a fresh perspective and can highlight small improvements that may otherwise be overlooked.”
For producers considering entering for the first time, his message is simple: the opportunity to learn and benchmark a product makes participation worthwhile, regardless of whether it wins a medal. Gold medal products also become eligible to enter the Australian Grand Dairy Awards and compete against leading products from around the country.
Ultimately, the competition celebrates much more than what appears on the judging table.
Award-winning products rarely happen by chance. They reflect the skills of dairy producers and processors, backed by strong manufacturing practices, quality control, food safety systems and a commitment to keep improving.
“Strong food safety practices create the clean, controlled and consistent conditions needed to make exceptional dairy products. And when those foundations are right, the quality is there for both judges and consumers to taste,” Victoria says.
Judging at the 2026 Royal Adelaide Show Dairy Products Competition.