As a small business owner, I find myself wearing lots of different hats day-to-day, week-to-week, even minute-to-minute! I am regularly a saleswoman, delivery driver, bookkeeper, grant writer, veterinarian and more…it is one of the things I love most about our farm business.
I’ve recently added another hat to the mix: lab supervisor.
As a licensed milk receiver and cheese processing plant, we are required by Federal law to test every batch of raw milk we process for antibiotics.* For years, we’ve used outside laboratories to do our testing for us. The added cost and time finally took their toll and we decided to put an “Appendix N” antibiotics testing lab in our cheese plant.
This was no small task, of course. I had to buy the testing media and all the equipment—a dedicated refrigerator, specially designed pipettors and disposable tips, approved thermometers, vials, and an incubator. I had to get all of my pipettors and thermometers calibrated (and put them on a schedule to be re-calibrated every 6 months) at a special lab over an hour’s drive away. I had to write no less than five standard operating procedures for the state inspector to review and approve. I had to take a written test, perform a lab for our inspector, and undergo “splits”—a blind test of all Appendix N labs state-wide.
You may be wondering, is it all worth the extra work? In a business that already has a lot going on, why add another set of tasks?
I really do think it is worth the extra effort, taking this work in-house. I may be a bit of a control freak, but when something this big affects our quality and peace of mind, it is worth doing it ourselves!
* Fun fact: All fluid milk and all dairy products made from milk—cheese, ice cream, yogurt, butter, etc.—are tested to ensure they are free from antibiotic residues. Dairy farmers are super careful to ensure that any animal that receives medicine passes the “withholding period” for that medicine. They, too, can perform quick “snap” tests on-farm to ensure the milk is safe for human consumption.