A small group of North Holland dairy farmers just claimed the most sought-after title in the cheese world. So yes, it’s true: Dutch cheese is the best in the world.
According to NU.nl, CONO Kaasmakers from Westbeemster beat more than 3,000 competitors from 25 countries to claim the title of best cheese in the world at the 2026 World Championship Cheese Contest.
The contest was held in Madison, a student town in Wisconsin, USA.
The task: eat cheese for three days straight. (How do you become a judge?)
On March 5, the judges finally put down their samples and declared a winner: Beemster Royaal Grand Cru, which retails for around €24 per kilo in supermarkets.
What does the best cheese in the world taste like?
Slice into a Beemster Royaal Grand Cru, and you’ll find a firm, slightly crumbly hard cheese with a rich, nutty character.
The texture comes from ageing the cheese on planks of spruce for a full year before it’s ready. As the cheese matures, it draws its flavour entirely from 100% North Holland pasture milk.
The milkiness combined with the woodiness from resting on the plank? A bite of heaven.
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Good cheese starts with good milk, and good milk starts with happy cows. CONO’s farmers put their herds out to graze for at least 185 days a year, with each cow spending more than ten hours a day in the field. (How do I become a Dutch cow?)
“When a cheese scores so highly with an international jury, you know that everything is just right,” master cheesemaker Sjoerd Hiemstra says in a press release. “From the milk to the making of the cheese to the ripening.”
The final score? 98.68 out of 100.
A very close race
Second and third place both went to Switzerland — Appenzeller Purple Label (98.45) and Alter Fritz (98.41), respectively.
The winning margin was less than a point across the top three finishers. Speaking on behalf of CONO, Nicole van Gorp tells Nu.nl that “We can say for two years that we make the best cheese in the world.”
The Netherlands didn’t stop there, either. Three more Beemster products took home gold: Beemster 30+ Mature, Beemster Jalapeño, and Beemster Smoked.
Now in its seventh decade, the World Championship Cheese Contest is widely regarded as the most rigorous technical cheese evaluation on the planet — 56 judges, 148 categories, three days of blind tasting.
And the Dutch came out on top. 💪
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It’s a long way from even being the best cheese in NL. Some of these cheese “competitions” are just marketing gimmicks