Best Canadian Cheese announced at World Cheese Awards 2025

Fromagerie de l’Île-aux-Grues – Agrilait SEC wins Best Canadian Cheese for their 
Bête-À-Séguin at the World Cheese Awards 2025

Canada takes home 29 of awards in total

Bête-À-Séguin from Fromagerie de l’Île-aux-Grues – Agrilait SEC was awarded Best Canadian Cheese at the World Cheese Awards. The highly coveted prize was awarded to a soft raw cows’ milk cheese. Made with animal rennet and matured for 8-12 weeks, this bloomy rind cheese wowed the judges at Festhalle, BernExpo in Switzerland during an intense day of judging on Thursday 13 November.   

In total, Canada was awarded 1 Super Gold, 5 Gold, 7 Silver and 16 Bronze awards. 

Organised by the Guild of Fine Food, the World Cheese Awards is globally recognised as the pre-eminent event in the cheese world. This, the 37^th edition, hosted by Switzerland Cheese Marketing, saw 5,244 entrants from 46 countries. Cheeses were judged by a panel of 265 leading cheese experts, including affineurs, graders and producers as well as retailers, journalists, broadcasters, and other experts in the field.     

The Es La Leche award is new to the World Cheese Awards 2025 with an aim to celebrate and recognise the part that milk plays in the cheese making process. The care, hard work and science behind milk production as the key ingredient in cheese is overlooked in the trade and virtually unknown by the cheese-loving consumer.  The award this year will recognise a person who has contributed to best-practice and knowledge for makers and the allied skills of animal husbandry in pursuit of excellence in milk production to create exceptional cheese.  

Es La Leche, literally translated, is ‘It’s the milk’ but in colloquial Spanish it is an exclamation for ‘It’s amazing’. 

Each year the panel is hand selected from some of the most accomplished cheese professionals in the world to ensure there is a balance of age, gender, discipline and areas of expertise.  

Judging took place in three rounds, over the course of one day. The first round saw judges work in teams of two or three, identifying any cheeses worthy of a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Super Gold award.  Then, in the afternoon the Super Gold cheeses were re-assessed by a Super Jury made up of 14 of the most distinguished cheese experts to find the top 14 cheeses from across the globe.  Finally, the top 14 cheeses went head-to-head to determine the World Champion Cheese.    

They assess the look, feel, smell and taste of each entry, scoring aspects such as the appearance of the rind and paste, as well as the cheese’s aroma, body, and texture, with the majority of points awarded for flavour and mouthfeel.  

To ensure a completely fair competition, the entire judging process is ‘blind’; all packaging and identifying logos and markings are removed, and the judges are given a brief description, but no indication of origin or producer.   

All the cheeses were entered through one of 20 consolidated shipping points located around the world to ensure that every competitor was delivered in the best possible condition for judging.  

The Guild of Fine Food worked with the Swiss authorities to apply for special licences, allowing the smallest artisan cheesemakers from across the globe to compete with bigger and better-known producers.   

John Farrand, managing director of the Guild of Fine Food, organisers of the World Cheese Awards comments: “And there you have it: the host country scoops the biggest prize in cheese again.  Perhaps it is that our judges are immersed in the terroir of the nation, perhaps it is the simple fact that the cheese has less far to travel, but the reality is that this cheese has won through our multi-layered and robust blind-tasting judging process and ended up achieving the highest score, impressing the Super Jury judges from 14 different nations.” 

The World Champion Cheese 2025 is Gruyère AOP Vorderfultigen Spezial over 18 months from Bergkäserei Vorderfultigen, a hard cows’ milk cheese from Switzerland. 

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For more information, imagery or to arrange an interview, please contact the Guild of Fine Food press office, pressoffice@gff.co.uk | +44 (0) 1747 825200

Keep up to date on social media:

@guildoffinefood | #worldcheeseawards

  

Notes to editors:  

The World Cheese Awards 2025 took place at Festhalle at BernExpo, Bern, Switzerland on Thursday 13 November 2025.  

The World Cheese Awards is organised by the Guild of Fine Food, for more information visit   

Both pasteurised and raw milk (unpasteurised) cheeses were entered, however, each year the World Cheese Awards acts in accordance with the host country’s guidelines around the import and export of food stuffs, and as such, there are some restrictions on cheeses entering from specific countries. 

  

• The Trophy winners (in alphabetical order by country followed by unique categories):  

• World Champion Cheese 2025 – Gruyère AOP Vorderfultigen Spezial over 18 months from Bergkäserei Vorderfultigen, Switzerland 

• Best American Cheese – Stockinghall from Murray’s Cheese 

• Best Australian Cheese – Inverloch Blue from Prom Country Cheese 

• Best Austrian Cheese – Mountain Rebell from Sulzberger Käserebellen Sennerei 

• Best Basque Country Cheese – La Leze Afinado Original from Queseria La Leze 

• Best Belgian Cheese – Groendal Gerijpt from Kaasboerderij ‘t Groendal 

• Best British Cheese – Aged Rutland Red from Long Clawson Dairy 

• Best Canadian Cheese – Bête-À-Séguin from Fromagerie de l’Île-aux-Grues – Agrilait SEC 

• Best Canary Island Cheese – Bodega Cabra Y Oveja from Finca de Uga 

• Best French Cheese – Crémeux des Aldudes aux Fleurs from Etxaldia 

• Best German Cheese – Berta 15 months from Hofkäserei Gut Ogrosen 

• Best Greek Cheese – Manouri PDO from Arvanitis 

• Best Indian Cheese – Eleftheria Moony from Vivanda Gourmet 

• Best Irish Cheese – St Tola Karst from Inagh Farmhouse Cheese (St Tola) 

• Best Italian Cheese – Parmigiano Reggiano 30-39 mesi from Nazionale Parmigiano Reggiano San Bartolomeo 

• Best Japanese Cheese – Yozawa Yagi Cheese from Yozawa Goat Farm 

• Best Latin American Cheese – Andante from Finca Las Luciérnagas 

• Best Netherlands Cheese – Montana Intenso from MAAZ Cheese 

• Best Norwegian Cheese – Leirgrøv Stølsmjølk from Hol Ysteri 

• Best Portuguese Cheese – Queijo Serra da Estrela from Queijaria do Armindo 

• Best Scottish Cheese – Corra Linn from Errington Cheese 

• Best South African Cheese – Parmesan 24 months from Klein River Cheese 

• Best Spanish Cheese – Hechizo from Quesería La Zarcillera 

• Best Swiss Cheese – Gruyère AOP Vorderfultigen Spezial over 18 months from Bergkäserei Vorderfultigen 

• Best Ukrainian Cheese – Gouda with truffle from Zinka 

• Best Artisan Cheese – TBC   

• Best Cheddar Cheese – Stockinghall from Murray’s Cheese, USA 

• Best Le Gruyère Cheese – Gruyère AOP Vorderfultigen Spezial over 18 months from Bergkäserei Vorderfultigen, Switzerland 

• Best New Cheese – Eniquem Maly princ 4 months from Eniquem Cheese, Slovakia 

• Best Raw Milk Cheese – Gruyère AOP Vorderfultigen Spezial over 18 months, from Bergkäserei Vorderfultigen from Switzerland  

• Best Smoked Cheese – Smoked Chechil from Đerđ The spirit of Schultz, Serbia 

• Best SCA (Specialist Cheesemakers Association) Member Cheese – Aged Rutland Red from Long Clawson Dairy, United Kingdom 

• Best US Goats’ or Ewes’ Milk Cheese – Pear, Wine & Rosemary Fresh Goat Cheese Log from Laura Chenel 

• Best Female Cheesemaker – TBC 

• The Es La Leche Award – Ricardo Outeiro from Airas Moniz, Spain 

• The Ann-Marie Dyas Award for Best Artisan Cheese, Presented by The Fine Cheese Co. – Sparkenhoe Red Leicester from Leicestershire Handmade Cheese Company, United Kingdom 

In addition, a special trophy is awarded by the Guild of Fine Food to a person or group to recognise their Exceptional Contribution to Cheese:  

• Exceptional Contribution to Cheese – Philippe Bardet, director of Le Gruyère AOP, Switzerland 

 

Sponsors  

The main sponsors of World Cheese Awards 2025 are:  |  |   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  

 

The trophy sponsors of World Cheese Awards 2025 are:   |  |  |  |  |  |  |  | Lacteo Network |  |  |  

  

The supporters of World Cheese Awards 2025 are:  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  

All trophy winners will be published on . 

About the judging process: 

The World Cheese Awards is judged by a panel of 265 leading cheese experts, including critics, chefs, recipe creators, buyers, retailers, journalists, broadcasters, and other experts in the field.   

Judges work in teams of two to three, identifying any cheeses worthy of a Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Super Gold award. They assess the look, feel, smell and taste of each entry, scoring aspects such as the appearance of the rind and paste, as well as the cheese’s aroma, body, and texture, with the majority of points awarded for flavour and mouthfeel. Each team that has awarded one or more Gold to the cheeses on their table will then put their highest scoring cheese forward to be consider for a Super Gold.   

These Super Gold cheeses are the best in the world and are judged a second time by the Super Jury of 14 internationally recognised experts, who each select a cheese to champion in the final round of judging. The Super Jury, representing all four corners of the globe, then debates the final 14 in front of a live audience, before choosing the World Champion Cheese live on WCA TV, which is streamed globally on .      

The Super Jury panel of experts assessing the final stage of the competition represented retailers and technical experts from around the globe. Amongst others, those taking part in the 14-strong international super jury this year included Sabrina Lau from  in Switzerland, Nick Tsioros from  in Canada, and Perry Wakeman from  in United Kingdom, they were joined by Rafael Dominguez Gonzalez from  in Spain and Solange Porley from  in Uruguay, as well as Ching Chin from  in Singapore.