(toskanews) – There were cheeses from Afghanistan, Panama and even Japan, cheeses made from cow’s or goat’s milk, but also from camel and mare’s milk. The world’s dairy tradition met in Bern this year to elect the best cheese on earth.
Over 5,200 shapes arrived in the pavilions of the Bern fair, cultures and knowledge from 46 countries, which the jurors, 265 in total, had to taste, smell, feel and finally judge. Trying to ignore personal tastes as one of them, Bruno Schiavuzzi, told us. «There are two paths, one is experience which helps us and in this case I am still a neophyte there are those who have many years more experience than me, especially the cheesemaker who is used to putting his hands in the curd and can recognize even more cheeses – explained Schiavuzzi – the other is to look at the technical sheet given to us and therefore on the basis of that we must objectively evaluate the cheese in front of us, which we touch, look for the flavour, smell the aroma or the smell, whatever you want to say, but it must correspond to the card we have.”
The selection follows precise rules: the jurors assign scores that decree a podium with bronze, silver and gold medals. Among the latter, the super golds are selected and subjected to the judgment of a jury made up of experts from 14 countries. The winner among the 14 finalists was Gruyère AOP from Switzerland, in an edition of the World Cheese Award, the 37th, which recorded record numbers, with over 9% more cheeses compared to the previous year. «50 countries with 5,000 cheeses are here competing for the record of the best cheese in the world – underlined Giovanna Frova, country manager Switzerland Cheese Marketing Italia – it is a moment of great visibility for Bern and also for Swiss cheeses, as our country is the host country of this wonderful event this year».
For Switzerland, the host country in this edition, it was a particularly important victory, a recognition of the local dairy tradition which combines generations of know-how, scientific rigor and protection of biodiversity: «Today Switzerland represents what is somewhat of the flagship of dairy production and speaks of passion, of know-how but also speaks a lot of nature – added Frova – The quality of these cheeses comes from a particularly rich milk that comes from cows that are bred and free to graze for around 230 years. days a year, therefore something very particular, and they have this biodiversity of over 500 plants and flowers that they feed on.”
A heritage that is transformed every year into cheeses which, in addition to winning awards such as the World Cheese Award, also conquer foreign markets starting from Italy with Emmentaler: «We are talking about around 79,000 tons of cheese produced in Switzerland, of which 15% arrives in Italy, but if we go down to Emmentaler, which is somewhat of the flagship, we are talking about over 50%, so that’s over 4,500 tons on a production of around 8,000, a very substantial figure.”
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