WELCOME TO THE US INTERNATIONAL CHEESE COMPETITION!
The competition is open to all commercially produced cheese and dairy products from around the world. Your product does not have to be sold in the United States. Submissions and competition setup will be held onsite at Haram-Christensen a food and cheese importer.
OUR STORY
The US International Cheese Competition is the first food competition from the International Beverage Competitions Group. We hold beer, wine and spirits competitions around the world in New York, Berlin, Melbourne and Asia/Singapore. We are thrilled that our competitions have continued to grow over the past 14 years, and we look forward to tasting and judging the finest cheese and dairy products from across the globe. Our staff and judges, including our founder Adam Levy, are all passionate about eating and drinking great products! We are excited to share our knowledge and competition results with the trade and the consumer through the competition results, as well as the Alcohol Professor and Cheese Professor and The Chocolate Professor sites.
What sets us apart from other international competitions is our trade-only blind judging panel who will be judging the products by their category and actual price per pound. At our cheese competition the importer, distributor, cheesemonger, retailer and restaurant owner will be our judges. We feel that these judges, whose livelihood rely upon their skill set, truly know what the consumer wants, as they receive on a daily basis the feedback from the consumer of what is good and what will sell. Price is a large part of a consumer’s decision-making process, so we feel it is a crucial criteria to include in the judging process.
Our trade-buyer judges are excited to bring our tried-and-true judging method to the cheese world!
Key Benefits to Participating in USI Cheese Competition
- This is an opportunity for you to place your product in front of real, working industry trade buyers, in one of the biggest cheese markets in the world. Plus, we’re the only International Cheese Competition where all the judges are real trade buyers, judging your product by its category and actual price. These buyers represent some of the top importers, distributors, retailers, and restaurants in the United States.
- Established cheese producers — this is your chance to re-connect and/or be re-discovered by the entire cheese buying community, in a true and equitable blind tasting by real trade buyers.
- Top winners from the competition (and all our other competitions) will be showcased at multiple tradeshows, both online and in-person. In addition, winners are featured in articles on our companion lifestyle blog, the Cheese Professor, as well as across our social channels, other trade and publication magazines, and websites.
- This competition allows international producers to be blind tasted by some of the top buyers in the US Market. Our buyers are always looking for new and interesting products to bring to the market. It is open to all commercially producers. You do not have to be sold in the United States or New York to submit.
- We work closely and consistently with our marketing and media sponsors to distribute the competition results to both the trade and the consumer. All the winners will be listed here on our website, highlighted and easily searchable by category. Top winners will be showcased on our Cheese Professor website.
- Winners receive a physical 2″ medal, digital image of the medal and numeric score. Winners will be listed on our website and showcased on the Cheese Professor and through our media partnerships. This is a great opportunity to showcase and display your wins for 2021 at trade shows and your sales marketing channels.
- Winners receive free use of the medal image and score to be used in all of their marketing materials including on website, POS sell sheets, banners etc. Winners will have the option of purchasing our authorized stickers and or medal image license on products and packaging.
Find Out More
Click below to learn more about our Competition!