Behind the scenes of a championship cheese

It’s one thing to tell customers about the high quality of your products. With an extensive list of prestigious awards, Agropur can go further and demonstrate a long, consistent history of cheesemaking excellence.

Agropur impressed the judges once again during the 2022 World Championship Cheese Contest. Our US cheesemakers earned nine awards with two of our cheeses named best in class in their respective categories.

The cheeses produced for contest judging are very much the same as those that arrive to our customers, said Mike Sipple, Agropur Vice President of Manufacturing – US Cheese and Ingredients.

Some companies will produce specialty batches aimed solely at producing a championship cheese.

“We make all of our contest cheeses on our normal lines,” Sipple said.

The World Championship is held every other year and has been hosted by the Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association since 1957. Cheeses start with 100 points, and judges make deductions for defects in areas such as flavor, body and texture and color.

When customers taste Agropur cheese, they can know they’re tasting some of the world’s finest. Our cheesemakers apply the same attention to detail whether the product is destined for competition or your neighborhood sandwich shop.

While our contest entries follow our typical production patterns, producing a champion does require a few special considerations.

Pat Doell, Cheese Production Supervisor at Agropur’s Luxemburg, WI, plant, led the teams that produced the 2022 grand champions for mozzarella and provolone.

Timing is the first major factor, Doell said. Every cheese style has its window for peak flavor and it’s important to take advantage.

“We want about two months on our provolone,” Doell said. “We want to make our mozzarella about 21 days from the time that it’s going to be judged.”

At the very end stages of the make, contest cheeses will get some extra attention to help ensure visual perfection, Sipple said.

“We’ll babysit through the brining process,” Sipple said. “We will make sure it’s handled with care to help protect the shape.”

A cheese destined for judging will also receive some additional care at packaging. While slight deviations in shape or some wrapper creasing aren’t major issues in the larger scheme, there’s often a razor-thin margin separating the very best cheeses. Even the smallest detail could bump a cheese to second, third – or out of the placing entirely.

Award-winning cheese requires exceptional ingredients. Agropur ensures that only the highest quality milk is used in our cheese. We source our milk from dairy farms located close by our manufacturing facilities.

Tradition is one of Agropur’s secret ingredients. Doell carries forth a dedication to excellence that has spanned generations. Roger Krohn, Pat’s uncle, has more than 45 years in the cheese business. He learned the craft from his father, Leo Krohn – Pat’s grandfather. 

Doell said his uncle and grandfather have been integral to his success in the field.

Doell, a Wisconsin Master Cheesemaker, said there is plenty of pride to come from any contest victory, however the value of competition extends beyond accolades. Whether winning or losing, cheesemakers learn from the process.

Notes from the judges give cheesemakers the ability to fine tune their recipes. They use that information when crafting subsequent contest entries.

“We’ll go back and look at what we did,” Doell said “We will look at what we used for ingredients, we’ll look at starter cultures and our make procedures. Even though we may have won with a particular cheese, we still might tweak things based on what the judges perceived.”

Sipple said Agropur’s contest success has contributed to our reputation for exceptional quality. The most important ingredients to our cheese are the pride, experience and expertise of the people who create it.

“I’m proud to work with the great cheesemakers we have,” he said. “I view my role as staying out of their way and letting them excel.”