Smith Dairy Products Co., Orrville, Ohio, is offering home cooks the chance to win cash prizes in its Smith’s Cash Cow Cottage Cheese Recipe Contest. An independent panel of judges will choose winning recipes that use any variety of Smith’s Cottage Cheese as an ingredient in appetizers or salads, entrees, or desserts.

A conflict between French Danone and Ireland’s Glanbia is going to court. Danone is objecting to the introduction by Glanbia of the Yoplait Essence yogurt products, saying it is a license infringement.

Danone is also resuming its investment in Thailand by helping Dutch Mill Co. expand internationally through the Danone network. Dutch Mill, best known for its yogurt and dairy products, wants markets abroad while Danone wants to enter the Thai dairy business again after selling its stake to its partner, the Saha Group, a few years ago.

In the U.S. Dannon and Finnish Valio Ltd. have reached an agreement that licenses Valio’s Lactobacillus GG culture to Dannon for use in some of its product lines.

A Maryland dairy farmer whose herd includes two cloned cows says Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Cooperative (MVMP) recently stopped accepting shipments from him, even though he voluntarily dumps milk from the clones and their 14 offspring. But MVMP says it suspended the farmer in December because of health violations stemming from conditions that make it impossible for inspectors to take required samples.

In the UK, new advertising rules which will brand cheese as “junk food” are being criticized as “dietary nannying gone mad” by the National Farmers’ Union.