It’s a shame to hear this story, St. Albans Cooperative Creamery, Inc. in Vermont, has lost its certification to perform the standard plate count test in its milk lab.
After failing two state evaluations, St. Albans Cooperative Creamery Inc., the largest milk handler in the state, has lost its certification to perform a routine and required milk test, the standard plate count test. The situation has forced the cooperative to ship milk samples out of state for testing since December at a cost of several thousand dollars a month.
Trouble started for the St. Albans lab in September 2005 when the lab was undergoing a routine on-site evaluation by the state, which is conducted every other year. The cooperative failed the raw bacteria count test in the on-site evaluation. Technicians did not perform the test properly, said Wendy Blackman, laboratory evaluation officer with the state Agency of Agriculture’s dairy lab.
That put the lab’s certification for the raw bacteria count into “provisional” status. The lab could continue to perform the test, but a second failure would revoke certification. The lab remained fully certified for all other procedures.
In October 2006, a second required evaluation called a split sample test was done at the lab. The test involves a pool of labs running tests on a milk sample. The results are compared to each other and a control sample, and labs must fall within an appropriate range in their results.
In mid-March, the lab participated in a second split sample test done by the state of Pennsylvania. Results from that test could come back as soon as May. If the results are good, the lab would be returned to provisional status and would no longer have to ship samples to the lab. Full certification could be restored if the lab passes an on-site evaluation scheduled for September.