U.S. Championship Cheese Contest Brings Nation’s Best To Wisconsin

In Wisconsin, it’s all about the cheese. So it makes sense that the state is hosting the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, which continues through Wednesday at the Lambeau Field Atrium in Green Bay. In the running for the cheese crown are a record 2,303 entries of cheese, butter and yogurt — representing a combined weight of nearly 37,000 pounds — from 33 states.

Wisconsinites are self-deprecating about their love of cheese, wearing cheese headgear to games of their beloved Green Bay Packers. The artisans who make Wisconsin cheeses have received more awards than cheesemakers in any other U.S. state. Wisconsin dairy farmers not only produce more cheese than their counterparts in other state, they also use 90 percent of their raw milk product for cheese. It’s been that way since the 1800s, when Wisconsin dairy farmers began making cheese with excess milk.

Cheese is a very big deal elsewhere, too. American consumers are eating more cheese than ever before — 34 pounds per capita in 2015, according the U.S. Department of Agriculture — and if this year’s contest entries, up 22 percent from the last biennial contest, are an indication, the nation’s cheesemakers are ready to meet the increased demand.

According to the International Dairy Foods Association, consumers purchased $18 billion in cheese from U.S. retailers in 2015, an increase of nearly 3 percent from the year prior and 27 percent from 2012, the Associated Press reported.

Winning the top prize in the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest, which will be awarded Thursday at a $25-a-ticket event, helps cheesemakers gain valuable exposure to their products. There have been 18 winners in the history of the contest, including goat cheesemaker LeClare Farms, which won in 2011.

“It helped us launch our business,” Larry Hendrick of LeClare Farms told USA Today. When his company won, “the industry was in its infancy and people weren’t recognizing goat as a highly valuable product."

The cheesemakers are competing in 101 classes judged by a panel of 48 cheese experts — cheese graders, cheese buyers, dairy science professors and researchers — from 19 states. Their criteria include flavor, body and texture, saltiness, color, finish and packaging.

The most popular classes this year are pepper-flavored cheese (medium heat) and brick/muenster cheese, which have 44 entries each. There are 25 newcomers this year.

The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, which puts on the competition, said the categories with the most growth this year are string cheese, where entries are up 113 percent; soft ripened cheese, with a 66 percent increase in entries; and Edam and Gouda, which are up 52 percent.

The Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association plans to donate about 9,000 pounds of the cheese to a Green Bay food pantry.

Image: Judge William Wangerin, front, and three other judges consider cheeses at the U.S. Championship Cheese Contest in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Carrie Antlfinger)