The ICF Annual Conference 2023 is three weeks out, and this is the week we start hearing from members who are still deciding whether to go. If that's you, here's the honest pitch: this is the one week a year where the person who judges your competition entry, the distributor who might carry your wheel, and the committee volunteer who can actually answer your labeling question are all in the same building.
What's actually happening there
Beyond the general sessions, the Awards & Competition Committee runs the judged competition that this spring's entry-prep workshops have been building toward all year — the conference is where that work finally gets scored. Industry outlooks published earlier this year pointed to exactly this kind of in-person judging and networking as the thing cheesemakers said they missed most and were most eager to get back to. The Education Committee is also running hands-on sessions tied to several of this year's course tracks, including affinage and sensory evaluation, so if you're partway through a certification, this is a good place to close a gap before the fall cohort starts.
If you've never attended before, budget more time than you think for the exhibit floor. It's where a lot of members find their next supplier or distributor relationship, in the kind of five-minute conversation that a phone call never quite replicates. It's a pattern that holds across the trade, not just at our own event: a major specialty-food trade show sold out its exhibit floor and drew thousands of buyers this June, a sign that in-person sourcing hasn't lost any ground to catalogs and cold email even years after it briefly went virtual.
What still needs a decision from you? A few things have real deadlines attached, not just a general "the sooner the better":
- Competition entries. If you're submitting a wheel, the entry window closes well before the event itself — check the competition page rather than assuming you can register on-site.
- Course credit. If you're mid-certification and want conference attendance to count toward it, confirm with the Education Committee before you travel, not after.
- Shipping vs. carrying. Wheels traveling any distance need a real plan for temperature control in transit. A member who shipped an unrefrigerated box two summers ago still brings it up as the mistake she doesn't repeat.
Veterans of past conferences tell us the same thing every year: bring a notebook you'll actually use, comfortable shoes for a concrete exhibit floor, and a business card even if you think your operation is too small to need one. The member who ends up on a distributor's short list is usually the one who handed over a card, not the one with the biggest booth.
If you haven't registered yet, do it this week. If you have questions about the schedule or the competition rules, the Events Committee and the Awards & Competition Committee are both the right place to ask.
If you're still on the fence
We hear a version of the same hesitation every year: "I'm not sure my operation is far enough along to belong there." That's a familiar mix of confidence and caution — plenty of optimism about demand, tempered by real worry about costs and coverage — for anyone who's been watching this year's dairy-margin numbers alongside us. That mix is exactly the room you want to be in. The member sitting next to you at a session on affinage may be three years ahead of you on the exact problem you're trying to solve, or three years behind and asking the question you wish someone had answered for you back then.
If travel budget is the real obstacle, say so to the Membership & Outreach Committee before you count yourself out. It costs nothing to ask what support exists, and a quiet conversation now beats a missed conference and a fuller inbox of "wish you'd been there" messages in August.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.