Editorial Policy

Every article here goes through the same research and writing process, whether it covers a cheese sold in every supermarket or one made by four farms in a single valley.

This is that process in full, including the parts where we deliberately write less.

What Counts as a Source

We sort every document into one of two groups before we use a word of it.

The first group defines what a cheese legally is, how it is made, and what is in it. The second describes a cheese without having the authority to define it.

The difference changes our wording, not just a footnote. A specification lets us write that a cheese is aged a minimum of twelve months, while an importer listing only lets us write that the importer describes it as aged.

Source links sit at the bottom of every article, so you can go and read the same document we did.

What a Document Cannot Settle

Specifications are precise about one half of the question and silent on the other.

A register entry states the minimum fat in dry matter and the permitted rind treatments, and it will never tell you whether the wedge in front of you eats grassy, nutty, or flat.

For that we use direct tasting where we have done it, and published producer and expert descriptions where we have not. We say which of the two is behind a description instead of blending them into one confident voice.

Tasting Notes and How We Mark Them

Tasting notes on this site are editorial sensory descriptions written by a person, not laboratory results.

Not every cheese here has been tasted in-house, and the profiles that have not been say so rather than borrowing the authority of the ones that have.

Comparisons rest on side-by-side tasting wherever we have done it. Where we have not, we compare published specifications, producer descriptions, and practical differences in the kitchen, and we tell you that is what we are doing.

Numbers, Temperatures, and Dates

Numbers get the strictest handling here, because a figure reads as a measurement even when it began life as somebody's estimate.

• Composition figures: Fat, salt, protein and calcium come from government food composition databases or a producer specification, and we quote them per 100 g so two cheeses can be compared.
• Ageing times: Taken from the minimum in the specification. We write minimum rather than typical, because a wheel held far longer is a different cheese to eat.
• Storage temperatures and keeping times: Taken from food-safety guidance and producer instructions. We do not round a fridge temperature to make a sentence tidier.
• Prices: Given as a broad band or left out. Retail prices move by country, season, and shop, and a precise figure would be wrong within a month.
• Scores and star ratings: Not used. A cheese rated 87 out of 100 implies a methodology and a sample, and we have neither.

Where a figure varies from producer to producer we give the range and name its edges, instead of picking the middle and presenting it as the number.

When Almost Nothing Has Been Published

Some cheeses have no register entry, no dairy-board sheet, and no producer document in a language we can read.

The temptation is to fill the space anyway with confident-sounding text that no source supports.

We do the opposite and write less. The profile states what the label and the maker say, names them as the source, and then stops.

A short honest profile beats a long invented one. A thin section is a signal to check the label in front of you rather than trust us.

Safety and Health Claims

Safety claims follow tighter rules than flavour claims, because getting one wrong has a cost that good writing does not repair.

Anything covering pasteurisation, listeria, pregnancy, or allergens comes from a named food-safety or public-health authority, and we state its position rather than paraphrasing it loosely. Where two countries give different advice about the same cheese, we say so instead of quoting whichever version sounds simpler.

The Order We Work In

The sequence matters as much as the sources, because reading a specification after writing a flavour paragraph tends to leave the paragraph in place.

• Definition first: We read the register entry or the producer specification and settle the milk, the region, the ageing minimum, and the legal name before writing a sentence.
• Safety second: Pasteurisation status and any pregnancy or listeria guidance come next, from the public-health body that issued them, because those lines constrain everything written afterwards.
• Composition third: Fat, salt, protein and calcium figures are pulled per 100 g so the numbers in a comparison are measuring the same thing.
• Taste and use last: Flavour, texture, melting behaviour, and pairings are written once the definition and the safety position are fixed, and they are labelled as description rather than measurement.
• Sources listed and dated: Every document used is listed at the foot of the article, and the article is stamped with the date that work finished.

Where step one comes back empty, the article gets shorter rather than looser. A cheese with no published definition still gets a profile, and that profile says openly how little is on record.

Corrections and Updates

We update an article when new information surfaces and when a reader flags an error.

Every article carries a last-updated date, so you can see how current it is before you act on it.

Send the article URL and the exact sentence you are flagging through our contact page. A source we can read, even a photograph of the label, makes the check far quicker.

A wrong claim does not quietly disappear. Where a correction changes the advice, the date on the article moves with it.

Advertising and Independence

This site carries display advertising through Google AdSense under publisher ID pub-3867781003356565, and that is the only ad network running on it.

Google selects those ads. No advertiser sees an article before it publishes, and none has ever asked for a change afterwards.

There are no affiliate links on this site. It is not in Amazon Associates or any other referral programme, so nothing here pays us when you click it.

If that changes, each link gets marked inside the article carrying it, and the programme gets named on our affiliate disclosure page before the first link goes live.

No brand, producer, importer, or retailer pays for placement or for warm coverage. What we recommend comes out of the sources and our own judgment.

Google Analytics 4 runs under measurement ID G-HBSRF22BFP, and we read it in aggregate to see which guides people actually use.