How many cheeses are there in France ?

365…

…reply the masses who have already heard the quote, sometimes attributed to Charles de Gaule, sometimes to Winston Churchill. According to them, France has ‘as many cheeses as there are days in the year’. But in reality, there are many more French cheeses than that.

More than 1,600

The only ‘Guide to Raw Milk Cheeses’, published every year since 2002 by the magazine Profession fromager, has a list of 1600 cheeses. But this list is not exhaustive, and does not take into account cheeses which are pasteurised or thermised.

570 + 1,500

If we want to count the number of cheeses in France, we could count how many producers there are. The figures are easier to get hold of. The last annual enquiry by Agrestre (Ministry of Agriculture) had 570 cheese dairies listed in 2009, but this figure does not include farmstead producers. The Cnaol, an association which supports AOP producers, recognizes 1,500 cheese makers for the 47 different AOP cheeses. But there are just as many which work outside of AOP regulations, notably in the goat’s cheese sector. Each farm makes its own homemade ‘crottin’ or ‘buche’… In France, therefore, the bare minimum is 2,070 producers.

3,500

The Ministry of Agriculture also takes into account ‘establishments which transform milk and produce dairy products’, in as much as they must be labeled with a numéro d’agrément sanitaire, a food safety certification number. The official list tallies up 3,500. But amongst them, producers of mature cheeses are not mentioned. The list includes producers of yogurts, milk and icecream.

The number of producers can be counted, but it suddenly becomes a lot more complex when the number of cheeses are counted. This is particularly the case, as many producers adapt their first inventions, either by flavouring them (with pepper, with herbes de Provence, and with paprika etc), by maturing them for longer, and or by changing their weight to make ‘little brothers’ or ‘cousins’. If we count the number of cheeses in this way, the figures can quickly become out of control. Other producers reveal their creative side by inventing a new cheese every year, such as the Ferme de Cabriole, in Haute-Garonne, with creations such as Cayrou, Paâquerette, Come de vache, Cathare, Yolidoulidoux…

Historically, many cheeses were officially recognised with the arrival of milk quotas in 1984, when dairy farmers wanted to a make a better living from their milk production. In parallel, however, other cheeses began to disappear, due to a lack of people wanting to take over businesses or because dairies decided to merge together. France counted 350,000 dairy farms at the start of the milk quotas, and only 80,000 remained in 2010.

118

Another way of keeping tally is to look at the counters of dairy retailers. After an enquiry led in 2008 by FNDPL, Cnaol, and the magazine Profession fromager, on average, 118 cheeses were found in cheese shops, with a preference for AOP cheeses and farmstead raw milk cheeses. It’s a figure a little more modest than the previous ones, but it does guarantee true diversity.

20

Finally, there is one other way of counting the number of cheeses: by family. How exactly is cheese made? A complex answer is needed for this simple question as it could be approached in many different ways, another sign of how rich and varied a French cheeseboard can be.

Indeed, the main purpose of cheese is conserving milk by changing how it is consumed (from just a few days to two years, or even longer for certain pressed cheeses). And yet, the longer we want to conserve a cheese, the more its water content must be reduced. A natural and spontaneous draining of the cheese is needed for creating cream cheese, which must be consumed quickly, like Saint-Florentin. By cutting the curd, moisture is lost, which leads towards the creation of soft cheeses like Camembert, Brie, Munster and Livarot. In the next stage of cheese production, the curd is heated (to a high temperature), and pressed. The family of pressed cheeses therefore includes Saint-nectaire, and Tomme de Savoie, but also pressed cooked cheeses like Beaufort and Comté.

Other factors must be considered when defining a cheese, such as how it is matured (and which surface microflora growth is encouraged), if the milk is enriched with extra fat, its format (according to its shape and weight, which make the cheese ‘react’ differently), and the species of animal (cow, goat, ewe, or a mixture of these…). Classification could extend even further, but the experts have decided to agree on 20 main different families of cheeses.