bern, switzerland
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Remember when you ate too much cheese and felt a little sick, a greasy sheen appeared on your forehead, and you lied to yourself that from now on it was salad?
Next, let’s think about the heroic judges at this year’s World Cheese Awards. The judges met on Thursday to name Switzerland’s aged Gruyère the world’s best cheese of 2025.
This army of 265 cheese experts from around the globe was tasked with concocting dairy products of all shapes, sizes, colors and consistencies in a large auditorium in the Swiss capital Bern. Over the course of a few hours, each judge sniffed, stroked, crushed and finally sampled at least 40 different cheeses to arrive at a score.
The winner was Bergkasselei Folderfurtigen, a cheese made from cow’s milk on a small dairy farm in the alpine lowlands of western Switzerland. “It’s an incredible honor,” cheesemaker Pius Hitz said shortly after winning the top prize.
Although champion cheese sales have skyrocketed due to wins over the past few years, Hitz said the red and white Fleckvieh herd can rest assured. He said production was unlikely to increase to avoid upsetting the delicate balance of the protected Gruyère market.
Bergkasselei Folderfurtigen may have only traveled a few miles to win the award, but it was still a long journey to the top. That’s especially true for rival companies, many of which had to navigate long plane rides, difficult import laws and a U.S. government shutdown even before the contest began.
A total of 5,244 cheeses from 46 countries gathered at the Festhalle in Bern. As the day of judging approached, the cheese was announced by an intensifying cascade of scents that collided with the sound waves from a Swiss horn ensemble blaring in the corner of the auditorium.
The cheese was divided into 110 rows of white-clad tables under the watchful eye of a two- or three-person judging team. All wore matching yellow aprons and were chosen from a community of manufacturers, distributors and experts who make up the ranks of international cheese experts.
Shortly before 10 a.m., they began the arduous task of finding copper, silver, gold and “super gold” candidates among the milk-based wonders before them (discriminating features removed to allow for blind tasting).
A hole was drilled into the giant waxy wheel, and a strip scraped from the wedge was dipped into a pool of soft slime with a spoon. In between tastings, I would take a sip of water, take a bite of a crunchy apple, or even take a sip of Coca-Cola in case of an emergency to cleanse my palate.
There were cow, sheep, buffalo, camel and donkey milk cheeses. Manchego, Breeze, Camembert, Cheddar, Parmesan, Gouda. orange cheese, blue cheese, green cheese. Cheese covered with wax. Cheese covered with flowers. At least one type of cheese soaked in whiskey and red apple juice.
Some were tough. Some are fragile. Slightly dark. Some were light and fluffy. Some were so soft that they needed to be placed in jars. Some had their tops cut away, exposing their moist, moldy interiors, which appeared to be teeming with life forms unknown to science.
Everyone was given points based on how they looked, smelled, tasted, textured and felt in the mouth, which clearly wasn’t always a pleasant experience.
“There were some items today that were not allowed to be swallowed,” said Emma Young, a British cheesemonger and author who was reviewing the products on Table 26, pointing out cheeses that appeared to have had problems in the manufacturing process.
It wasn’t all bad.
“It’s outrageous,” Young added. “I’ve tasted some of the best cheeses I’ve ever tasted in my life, but I’ve also tasted some of the worst. It was a great taste training,” she said, pointing to the cheeses that received the highest ratings due to their “complexity” due to the type of milk used.
“If it tastes as good as it looks,” said Table 11 judge Ashley Morton, whose unusually bright blue cheese made using spirulina algae caught the attention of camera phones. Morton, a “cheese ambassador” from New York known as Bryonce, favored raw goat cheese coated in a gray substance that “almost resembles chewing on a cloud.”
“Look at the level of fruit here,” said Jen Shelton, an organic milk expert from Kansas, as she discussed a large wheel of cheese covered with pressed grapes with fellow Table 52 judge Charles Beaucaine of France. Then cheese was scattered on the table. “It’s very fragile,” she added. “It’s milky, but quite dry. There’s a little sweetness from the grapes, but it’s round.”
They took note of the cheese scores, wiped the utensils with paper towels, and moved on to the next option.
By noon, most of the judges had made their final selections and the ‘Super Gold’ winners were taken to a separate judging area where a team of seasoned cheese experts narrowed the finalists down to 14. These were tasted and scored live on stage, like a fragrant “Dancing with the Stars.”
The shortlist included a soft Japanese goat cheese with a texture similar to whipped cream, a hard British cheese the color of a deep sunset, an American cheese, and, inevitably, a few more Swiss cheeses. It is widely recognized that entries from the host country have a home advantage, and while cheese is not for tourists, local athletes do not always take home the crown. Gruyère won in 2022 when the contest was held in Wales.
John Farrand, managing director of the UK-based Guild of Fine Food, which organizes the event, said the World Cheese Awards stands out from other dairy competitions around the world because it can claim to be truly global, taking place in a variety of countries and with a very diverse range of participants and judges. In 2026, the contest will move to Cordoba, Spain.
The 2025 winning cheese was endorsed by Perry Wakeman, one of the top judges. He usually ages his cheeses at Rennet & Lind, near Cambridge, England. The Gruyère is a worthy winner, he said, describing its complexity: “Butterscotch, caramel. It’s savory, with some fruit funk notes, and there’s a little bit of char in there, like charcoal. It’s unbelievably long. It’s got three types of cheese on it, but you could still taste it.”
For onlookers, judging cheese can be a frustrating process. Concerns about foot-and-mouth disease and other agricultural health issues meant that under the terms of the contest’s special import permit, only judges who signed waivers would be allowed to sample the produce.
At the end of the day, the auditorium tables were still groaning with leftover cheese that was sadly never eaten. Contest organizers said the leftover material would not be completely wasted, but would be locally recycled and “turned into energy”.
