Spycher’s cheese beat 3,667 other entries from 26 nations. (Source: Getty/Thinkstock)
When it comes to food, especially cheese, only the best one can walk away with glory. To identify the cheese of superlative quality, a competition was held, and now, the world’s best cheese has been identified — it is the gruyère cheese from Switzerland which took home the title this year. The World Champion Cheese Contest — which takes place once every two years in Wisconsin, US — awarded the top prize to one Michael Spycher from Bern, Switzerland, for this gruyère. Spycher’s cheese beat 3,667 other entries from 26 nations.
The runner-up was also Swiss cheese: a hard one made of cow’s milk by Hardegger Kase AG. The third prize was given to a type of gouda cheese from the Netherlands.
Spycher’s Gourmino Le Gruyère AOP scored a 98.81 out of 100. The cheese is believed to be made out of cow’s milk, produced for the past 900 years near the town of Gruyère, from where it gets its name. Spycher had taken home the award in 2008 as well.
Cheese, butter, yogurt, dairy ingredients, you name it! Eight CDR staff members are serving as judges this week at the World Championship Cheese Contest. 🏅🧀 pic.twitter.com/YQmvvj4IO0
— CDR (@WICDR) March 4, 2020
It is believed that the three-day competition is the largest technical cheese butter and yogurt competition in the world. This year, there were some 55 judges that inspected the entries, tasted them and assessed the texture before making the announcement. The jury comprised dairy science professors, cheese graders, researchers, and cheese buyers. In total, the panel included judges from 19 nations. In 2018, it was France that took home the title.
In a separate competition last year, Rogue River Blue cheese from America was recognised as the best cheese in the world. Produced by US cheesemaker Rogue Creamery, it is made annually with cow’s milk from Southern Oregon’s Rogue Valley. For the competition, 260 judges from 35 different countries travelled to Bergamo to smell, taste and grade the cheese. Forty-two nations had participated including Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Africa, Turkey, USA, to name a few.