New England Regional Cheese Competition Judges

Meet our 2025 Judges!

John Greeley - Head Judge

Judging Chair Emeritus, Competition and Judging Committee

Maitre Fromager – Guilde des Fromagers

John Greeley was born on the Isle of Jersey (home of the Jersey cow breed). He was educated at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and his career choice of professional radio announcer slowly ended when he first tasted real, hand-made cheese. He operated the Cheese Division of John Dewar Meat Company for ten years and in 1990 founded and operatedSheila Marie Imports, Ltd.- an importer of specialty foods from Europe and New Zealand.

He was instrumental in supporting local cheese makers and helping them reach both independent and major chain retailers in New England and eventually the Northeast.

Gourmet Foods International purchased Sheila Marie Imports in 2007, and John served as Vice President of Northeast Sales for GFI. He retired in 2018.

John holds degrees in cheese grading from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and cheesemaking, from Washington State University, at Pullman.

In 1983 he met ACS founders Dr. Frank Kosikowski and Dr. Dick Kleyne and joined the Society in support of the Judging event. In 1985 he and Ann Dixon brought the first complete ACS Conference to the Four Seasons Hotel in Boston and hosted the first Festival of Cheeses.

Between 1988 and 2007 he served for 15 years as Chairman of the Cheese Judging and Competition Committee.He expanded the cheese categories from 8 to 102 and developed the Aesthetic and Technical two judge concept unique to the ACS. He continues to serve on the Competition and Judging Committee redefining the categories for Competition Committee and developing “American Originals “guidelines for ACS cheesemakers.

John also served on the ACS Board of Directors for 12 years.

John co-chaired the ACS annual conferences in 1987 with Dr. Dick Kleyne at Rutgers University, in 1996 with Ruth Flore at the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park NY and again with Ruth in 1999 at Shelburne Farms VT.

He was inducted into the Guilde des Fromagers in 2002 and elevated to Maitre Fromager in 2010.

In 2003 he was recruited by the New Zealand Specialist Cheese Makers Ass. Between 2003 and 2007 John remodeld their national cheese competition and served as the Master Judge of the New Zealand’s Cuisine Champion of Cheese Competition. He developed their cheese classes and categories, awards and rules, and trained their judges. He was a media spokesman for the NZSCM and the national competition in press, radio and TV. He traveled New Zealand conducting trainings and cheese and wine curriculums while championing their local cheeses. John was the keynote speaker at the annual awards ceremony and visited almost all of the New Zealand specialist cheese makers.

He resides in Swampscott MA with his wife Nancy and twin sons William and Walter.

Kiri Endicott - Aesthetic

Kiri Endicott has had a passion for food since her father, Peter, sat her on the counter at two years old and she “helped” him whip together pancake batter. Her love of cheese fl ourished in middle school when he began working as a full time cheesemonger, and became her profession when she helped Peter open the Cheese Shop of Salem in 2015. She tasted widely and learned deeply behind the counter and outside the shop. She competed twice in the Cheesemonger Invitational, and traveled to Bra, Italy for the Slow Food Cheese Festival, to Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont for Cheese Camp, and to many cheesemakers around New England to learn directly from producers. Using this knowledge, she has built a robust online class program at the shop, teaching customers about all things cheese! If she’s not behind the counter or in front of the camera talking about the dairy she loves, you’ll fi nd her in the kitchen probably making something chocolate, reading and thinking about something chocolate, or hiking and wishing she had something chocolate.

Jeff Roberts - Aesthetic

Jeff Roberts, president of Cow Creek Creative Ventures, provides consulting services to small-scale food producers and is a frequent speaker in Europe and the United States on artisan food, sustainable agriculture, and the working landscape. He co-founded the Vermont Institute for Artisan Cheese at the University of Vermont, wrote The Atlas of American Artisan Cheese and is a member of Guilde Internationale des Fromagers. He taught the history and culture of food at the New England Culinary Institute and was visiting professor at the Slow Food University of Gastronomic Science. His book Salted & Cured: Savoring the Culture, Heritage and Flavor of America’s Preserved Meats traces the history and culture of dry-cured meat from 1630 to the present.

Recent work includes collaborations with colleagues to guide food history and culture tours in the Italian regions of Molise, Piemonte, Puglia, and Sicily. In 2022, he completed a petition to the Department of the Treasury to create Vermont’s first American Viticulture Area.

During his career, Jeff was a meteorologist, museum curator, associate dean at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine, and vice president at the Vermont Land Trust. Jeff was active in Slow Food International and USA as national board director and also director of the Vermont Arts Council, Vermont Fresh Network and the Hunger Mountain Food Coop.

Link to Cheese Connoisseur article:

https://www.cheeseconnoisseur.com/jeff-roberts-cheese-connoisseur/

January 2025

Jennifer Tolliver -Aesthetic

Jennifer is a Cheesemonger, Instructor, and Cheese Buyer at the flagship Formaggio Kitchen in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At Formaggio Kitchen, Jennifer specializes in British, Irish and Domestic Cheese. Her path from scavenger of cheese offcuts to cheesemonger is a winding one.

In 2018, Jennifer quit her law practice to start a farm in Hillsborough, North Carolina where she raised goats, sheep, poultry, and vegetables. Seeking more structure in her schedule, she took a part-time job as a dishwasher at her favorite local cheesemaker, Boxcarr Handmade Cheese. She fell in love with the mix of magic and science of cheese, and worked her way up to Cheesemaker.

Her love of microbes continued to deepen. Jennifer became a Certified Cider Professional in 2021, while at Botanist & Barrel, the South's only natural cidery, completed foraging and cultivation courses at Mushroom Mountain, South Carolina, and worked with natural yeast bread and pastries at Sour Bakery. But cheese was always her true love.

In 2022, Jennifer attended Ballymaloe Cookery School in County Cork, Ireland, focusing on Irish dairy. Since moving to Massachusetts in 2024 to become a cheesemonger at Formaggio Kitchen, Jennifer has enjoyed exploring the abundance of New England.

Austin Banach - Technical

Austin Banach is a culinary adventurer with an insatiable appetite for cheese with the mileage and passport stamps to prove it. Currently, he resides at Guido's Fresh Marketplace in Western Massachusetts, transforming the store’s cheese counter into a specialty food epicenter. As a key volunteer and planning committee member for the American Cheese Society, he's part cheese maestro, part conference ninja—helping to orchestrate a national celebration of all things dairy. Among his international cheese credentials: he snagged the prestigious Essex Street Cheese Company's Manchego Internship in Spain and was one of the first Americans to judge the 'Gourmet Quesos, Best of Spanish Cheeses' competition in Madrid. When he's not globetrotting in pursuit of the perfect wedge, Austin moonlights as an oyster-shucking maverick, running a raw bar catering business that proves he's got skills both on land and sea.

Lisa Caprera - Technical

While she’s always loved cheese, Lisa Caprera can't pinpoint the exact

moment that she first dreamed of working with cheese professionally, but it

probably came sometime between sneaking cheese scraps as a line cook and

going back to school to study food science at Penn State. There, under Dr.

Kerry Kaylegian, she worked on research projects tracking quality and

consistency in cheesemaking and on improving food safety in small-scale

cheese processing facilities. As the Creamery Manager for Goat Rodeo Farm

& Dairy, she put her background to the test alongside a very small team to

make award-winning cheeses just outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Along with

business partner Els Baum, Lisa is in the process of opening her newest

venture: Steel Cauldron Cheeseworks, an urban microcreamery which will be

dedicated to producing small-batch, artisanal cheeses in the heart of

Pittsburgh. She is proud to watch the growth of the Pennsylvania cheese

industry and is awed by all of the talented farmers, cheesemakers, and

educators who make great cheese possible.

Lisa first became interested in judging cheese through the collegiate Dairy

Products Evaluation Contest. She has volunteered behind the scenes at the

World Championship Cheese Contest, American Cheese Society Judging &

Competition, and Pennsylvania Farm Show cheese contest, and later judged

cheese for the Eastern States Exposition and the American Cheese Society.

She is a firm believer in the power of sensory evaluation as a tool for

troubleshooting and tracking cheese quality.

Steven Murphy - Technical

Steve Murphy spent most of his career with the Department of Food Science, Cornell University, retiring in August of 2016 after 36 years of service. Steve began his work with Cornell as a laboratory technician performing research in dairy microbiology, chemistry, and quality. He worked his way up to a Sr. Extension Associate position where he coordinated, developed, and participated in extension-based training and outreach programs that addressed milk and dairy product quality and trouble-shooting; laboratory testing methods and interpretation; product sensory evaluation; dairy processing; and food safety. He has served as a dairy product judge for the NY State Fair Dairy Product competition for over 20 years and has been an invited technical judge for the American Cheese Society competition (2016-19, 2022); the Big E Competition (2018-19, 2023-24); and the PA Farm Show (2022-23). Steve has taught numerous HACCP/Food Safety Plan courses; is a Lead Instructor for the FSMA Preventive Controls for Human Foods curriculum; and routinely assists dairy operations with their food safety programs. Throughout his career he has been involved in writing peer reviewed publications and extension-based educational handouts for the dairy industry. After retiring from Cornell, Steve served as the Executive Director of the Dairy Practices Council (DPC), a non-profit organization that develops and disseminates educational guidelines for the dairy industry, from January 2017 to December 2019. Although mostly retired, he is still active with the Cornell Dairy Foods Extension Program as needed for training and outreach; assists small dairy / food operations with food safety plan development; and is active in a number of committees in various dairy/food associations (i.e., DPC, IAFP, NCIMS NYSAFP). Steve has a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology and Masters of Professional Studies in Food Science, both from Cornell University.