The Year was 1958 -- Alaska became the 49th state, Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House, kids of all ages were twirling the new toy sensation, the Hula Hoop, “At The Hop,” was all over the airwaves, a gallon of gas cost 24 cents and a gallon of milk was just $1.01.

   A lot has changed in 50 years and thanks to the Merced County Fair’s Milk Producer’s Quality Control Contest for Grade “A” Dairies, the milk and other dairy products we enjoy today taste much better than they did in 1958.

   The contest, which is reportedly the largest of its kind west of the Mississippi River, is turning 50. The 50th anniversary event was held today at the Merced County Fairgrounds.

   About 30 judges tasted almost 700 milk samples Thursday morning in the fairgrounds’ Pavilion. Fair staff will tabulate the judges’ flavor and bacteria scores for the samples from Merced, Madera, Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Sacramento Counties. The judging results -- the highest scoring milk producers and the creameries they sell milk to -- will be announced before the fair, and awards will be presented to the winners at the awards banquet during the fair, July 15-20.

   Joe Petersen, a field representative for California Dairies Inc., spends his days making sure area milk producers’ quality is the best. Since 1977, the Gustine resident has served as a judge at the fair’s Milk Producer’s Contest and he was back on Thursday. The contest judges represent creameries, labs, county environmental health departments, college and university animal science departments and the USDA. Working in teams, they score the milk using a flavor score sheet to assess the samples.

   About 40 percent of California’s milk comes from the counties that participate in the fair’s contest, Petersen said.

   The competition was started by Haydn J. “Mickey” Sartori, a state dairy inspector, who died in 1997. He enlisted the help of others including Frank Leo, a quality control field man for Foremost and Berkeley Farms dairies. Leo attended Thursday’s event.

   The contest was established to improve the quality of dairy products in Merced, Madera, Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Sacramento counties. It serves as an educational tool and incentive for milk producers who don’t distribute their own products but sell them to companies for processing and distribution. The object of the competition is to give producers an opportunity to show their skills in producing high-grade milk and to recognize their abilities.

   The contest began at the Foremost plant in Newman and moved a few years later to the Merced County Fairgrounds, where judging was done under the Grandstand. In the early years, about 30 dairymen from Merced County’s Westside and Stanislaus County submitted samples for judging.

   The number of samples judged has grown to about 700 and over the years changes have been made in scoring and how samples are handled. One overall contest winner was selected but starting in the 1980s the winners are those dairies that have the highest score from each of the eight local milk processing plants.

   In 1984, Tony Leo, who was the Merced County Fair CEO at the time, established the “The Golden Cow Award” to recognize individuals dedicated to improving the quality of dairy products. Tony Leo, now the Stanislaus County Fair CEO, attended Thursday’s festivities. The first recipient of the “Golden Cow Award” was Sartori and the contest was renamed in his honor in 1998.

   Sartori’s daughter, Carol Sartori Silva, who is on the Merced County Fair’s Board of Directors, recalls tagging along with her father when he inspected milk and other dairy products all over Merced County. “I remember him pulling milk off the grocery store shelves when it was past the expiration date,” she said. After her father gathered up a bunch of dairy samples he would analyze them to make sure they were good quality.

   “The reason this contest started was to identify some of the industry’s problems, to find solutions to those problems and improve quality control,” Sartori Silva said. “They wanted to make milk cleaner, healthier and better tasting for consumers. The contest just wasn’t about tasting milk, it was about ‘how do we police ourselves so there is a better product for consumers?’ ”

   She’s proud of her father’s role in launching the contest and helping improve milk quality but stressed that the competition continues to be a group effort and that was the message at the 50th anniversary celebration. “A lot of people have worked hard, volunteering their time to make sure we have the best product possible,” Sartori Silva said. “That’s what it’s all about, making a better, safer product for the consumer.”

   Petersen has spent his career making sure that the glass of milk you pour your child is top quality and tastes good, too. Looking back at more than 30 years as a contest judge, he said, “Milk quality and taste is absolutely better than it was 50 years ago.” There are many reasons for that, Petersen said.

   The technology at every step of the milk production process has improved from more effective cleaning solutions for equipment, improved pump designs, advancements in milk cooling machines, better sanitation practices, individual cow stalls, strides in veterinary science focusing on healthier cow herds, better feed and feeding methods, a more efficient test for antibiotics in milk and improvements in pasteurizing milk.

   He said the competition is a good way for the industry to get together. “As a field man, you’ve got to pass judgment on milk in a tank that may not be so good and this was a good learning experience for me, especially in the early days, as far as sorting out the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to milk.”

   When it comes to judging milk at the Milk Producers’ contest, Petersen said, “Most of the milk tastes really good.” There will be a few samples with a flavor defect, but he added that the bad samples won’t just be disqualified from judging. “The dairy that produced the milk will be alerted to a possible problem.”

   The fair provides the flavor scores from judging to each dairy. “If you’ve got a real flavor problem like a sour taste, hopefully the dairy would improve the situation. Sometimes these dairies just go along doing what they do and they don’t know they have a problem, we let them know and they can take care of it.”

   For information, call the fair office at 722-1507 or email to info@mercedcountyfair.com or fax at 722-3773. Visit the Merced County Fair’s award-winning website, www.MercedCountyFair.com

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