The Murky Matter of Raw-Milk Cheese

September 30, 2025 janet@janetfletcher.com

Two U.S. raw-milk cheeses: Cascadia Creamery’s Sawtooth and Jasper Hill Farm’s Alpha Tolman — Always raw: Cascadia Creamery Sawtooth (left) and Jasper Hill Farm Alpha Tolman

With raw milk experiencing surging demand in the U.S., it seems a good moment to revisit raw-milk cheese. Almost certainly, it’s on the decline. Both here and in Europe, cheesemakers are abandoning raw milk. And almost certainly, many of the “raw milk” cheeses in the marketplace are not raw—at least not in my estimation. That’s because the definition is not as cut-and-dried as you might think.

Pay More, Get More?

June 16, 2025 janet@janetfletcher.com

La Dama Sagrada, a Spanish raw-milk goat cheese

My husband and I are planning a trip to South Korea, so we were watching Korean food videos on YouTube one recent evening. In one travel vlog, a young American couple is checking out a popular fast-food chain called No Brand Burger (definitely not on our itinerary). The official motto of No Brand Burger is refreshingly un-American: “Why pay more? It’s good enough.” The frankness made us laugh, but at a cheese tasting the day before, a guest had basically asked me the same question. How much do you have to spend to get good cheese, he wanted to know, and at what point are you spending more but not getting more quality?

Tough Calls in Cheese Land

April 2, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

Do plant-based products belong in a cheese competition? As we cheese lovers learned in January, a plant-based entry was a finalist in the Good Food Awards’ cheese category. That’s a first. Many people, including me, weren’t even aware that non-dairy foods could compete in the category, which specifies that the entries be “made with milk from animals raised using good animal husbandry.”

Is Cheese a Dairy Food?

January 15, 2024 janet@janetfletcher.com

Boont Corners: Good Foods award winner — Good Food Award Finalist: Pennyroyal Farm Boont Corners Reserve

The cheeses I love are a collaboration between humans and animals. Milk, culture, enzymes and salt plus centuries of passed-down expertise. But I may need to rethink that. Last week, for the first time, a plant-based product was named a finalist for a Good Food Award in the cheese category. I wasn’t even aware that plant-based products could enter, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about this news. If cheese isn’t from milk, what is cheese? I reached out to some people whose opinions I value—retailers, cheesemakers, writers—for their thoughts on this shifting landscape. Is it time to redefine cheese in a way that embraces non-dairy alternatives?