If you had a proctored exam scheduled this month for Competition Judge Accreditation or the written portion of Certified Cheese Professional, you've probably already gotten an email telling you it isn't happening as planned. Third-party testing centers across the country have extended their closures into May, and that's affected members mid-way through nearly every credential we offer that ends in a proctored sitting.
We want to be plain about what this means and doesn't mean. It does not mean your progress is lost. It does not mean you have to start the credential over. It means the last step is delayed, and we're working through what "delayed" looks like credential by credential.
What's actually different by credential
Not every ICF credential has the same finish line, so the disruption lands differently depending on which one you're working toward:
- Cheese Foundations Certificate and Food Safety & HACCP Certificate are coursework-and-assessment based through our own learning platform, with no third-party proctoring involved. If you're working toward either of these, nothing about your path has changed, and your progress keeps moving exactly as before.
- Certified Cheesemonger and Sensory Evaluation Certificate include a practical tasting component that we administer ourselves at events. Those are paused for the same reason our in-person workshops are paused — we'll reschedule sessions as our event calendar firms up over the coming weeks.
- Certified Cheese Professional (CCP) and Competition Judge Accreditation are the two that route through outside testing centers for their written exams. These are the ones directly caught by the closures, and where most of this week's member questions are coming from.
- Advanced Affinage Certificate doesn't have a proctored exam at all — it's portfolio-and-review based, so it's unaffected by any of this.
What to do if you're mid-credential
If your CCP or judge accreditation exam was canceled out from under you, you don't need to do anything urgent. Rescheduling windows are opening in stages as the vendors we route through extend their own closures market by market, and appointments already on the books are simply rolling forward rather than disappearing. We're also asking those testing vendors directly about remote-proctored options, the same way several other professional credentialing bodies have moved this spring — we don't have a firm date to share yet, but it's an active conversation, not a maybe.
In the meantime, this is a genuinely good stretch to keep studying rather than let momentum stall. If you were counting on a specific test date to force the pace, treat the delay as extra runway instead of a setback: revisit the sections you were least confident on, work through a practice tasting panel on your own kitchen table if you're aiming for Certified Cheesemonger, and if you want a study partner, post in the member forum — several of you are clearly in the same boat this month, working through the same material with nobody to compare notes with.
We know a delayed credential can feel like more bad news layered on top of a month that already has plenty of it, especially if you were hoping to use the credential for a raise, a new role, or a supplier contract that asks for it by name. We'd rather you hear the honest timeline from us than assume the worst from silence.
We'll email everyone with an affected appointment directly as soon as we have new dates, and we'll update the certification pages the same day those dates are confirmed. If you haven't heard from us and think you should have, check your junk folder first, then reach the Education Committee through the member portal.
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.