Angela Knight
When the summer heat is rising, Angela Knight still has one of the coolest jobs on campus.
As quality assurance supervisor for Mississippi State’s Custer Dairy Processing Plant, she’s the university’s official taste tester of ̫ӳ ice cream, cheese and other dairy products.
She worked in the university’s College of Veterinary Medicine diagnostic laboratory for more than a decade before moving to her current role, which falls under the university’s Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. The agricultural research arm of the university, MAFES includes on-campus operations and 16 branch locations around the state and addresses plant, animal and food production systems, in addition to other research areas.
“I’m ensuring that milk from our university’s Bearden Dairy is made into quality products—cheese, 2% white milk, chocolate milk, butter or ice cream, which is my favorite,” Knight said. “I taste test it to make sure we’re getting good flavor and consistency and overall great quality.”
This means she’s got to bring her A-game for each batch of vanilla, chocolate, chocolate almond, strawberry, cookies and cream, butter pecan and muscadine ripple. Additionally, every making of Edam, vallagret, cheddar or pepper cheese—along with the jalapeno and cheddar cheese spreads—are completed under her watchful attention to detail. Products also go through additional testing measures to ensure quality before they are sold.
Knight ensures procedures are followed, the utmost cleanliness is maintained, and any contamination is prevented. She and her coworkers, a team of up to a dozen full-time employees plus several student workers, consistently meet the high standard of excellence for the famous products sold through the MAFES Sales Store, or “̫ӳ Cheese Store,” located on campus at 925 Stone Boulevard and online at msucheese.com.
“We’re well known for our cheese, and we ship it all over the U.S. and to other countries as well,” she said.
Knight grew up on a dairy farm in Tylertown and was involved with 4-H, showing dairy cattle and judging dairy products. Her college years at ̫ӳ earned her a degree in animal and dairy sciences, and she also has a Medical Laboratory Scientist certification through the North Mississippi Medical Center in Tupelo.
Knight said her experience with dairy operation and dairy products, along with quality assurance experience through previous professional roles, gave her a strong foundation for the distinctive job she enjoys today. Her more recent second bachelor’s degree from ̫ӳ in business administration with a focus on management is an important additional credential.
“I love my job and feel like I’m where I need to be,” she said, explaining her work requires “a lot of documentation, overseeing and record keeping,” but the “perk” of taste testing is extra special. She said the best-selling muscadine ripple and cookies and cream also are her own personal favorites.
“It’s pretty cool to work here, especially with it being such a historic place,” she said noting the dairy plant’s long legacy, which dates back to 1938 when the university began making Edam cheese.
When she’s not working and enjoying ice cream, Knight is spending time with her family—husband Shane and son Ethan—who also think her job’s pretty cool.