If you were at Bern’s expo center for World Cheese Awards 2025, you wouldn’t think Switzerland had a cheese problem.
Nearly 1,000 Swiss cheeses were entered into this year’s competition – which attracted record-breaking 5,200+ entries from 46 countries – and the venue’s Festhalle was brimming with local cheese and wine producers showcasing their (often award-winning) produce. A type of Swiss Gruyere snatched the top gong, too: and yet, falling demand for staples like Emmental has been a long-term trend that isn’t letting up.
What’s affecting appetite? A mix of industry changes, stiff competition domestically and on the export market, and evolving consumer preferences are the core reasons. In short, Swiss cheese is expensive to make, expensive to buy, and fewer consumers are prepared to shell out for it.
Another complication hit the Swiss industry this year when its second biggest export market, the US, served up the nation a 39% tariff rate on imports, effective from August. This will be reduced to 15% following discussions last week, but Swiss cheese exports have already been hit: in August, they fell by more than 55%, and orders placed ahead of the holiday season have been made under the higher levy.
In the US – where consumer sentiment has dropped to near-record lows this month – cheese that’s sharply increased its price would be a hard sell.
Second only to coffee, cheese is Switzerland’s largest export food commodity to the US. In 2024, 11% of its cheese exports were shipped to the US, or just shy of 8,800 tons.
And yet, the Swiss cheese industry is far from done wooing consumers abroad and at home; with the younger consumer cohort specifically targeted in marketing campaigns designed to prop up demand. Provenance continues to be a trump card for Swiss cheese, too – and there’s far more than Emmental to the Alpine nation’s traditions in cheesemaking, as we learned.
Lorenz Hirt, chairman of the Board of Directors of Switzerland Cheese Marketing, told us: “Switzerland is mostly known for its cheese with holes and hard cheeses, but not for the soft cheese, and we have wonderful, marvellous soft cheese and also fresh cheeses. This world championship could be a possibility also to show the world that we have soft cheeses as well.”
So how is the industry raising the profile of its iconic cheeses among consumers globally? “Our products are playing in the absolute premium segment of cheese, and what we have to transport and to communicate is the inner values,” Hirt said. “One of our slogans is what elsewhere is trend, we call tradition. We have a very strong cheesemaking tradition and we are strong in the traditional cheeses.”
In particular, the Swiss cheese industry has been trying to get younger consumers excited about the category: but what are the winning approaches?
“We have a focus more on not the long-ripened cheeses, but the younger cheeses, which are not as intense in flavor, to get the younger generation to start eating cheese,” Hirt said. “Then they can start to develop their knowledge of cheese and explore other varieties: but you have to have the mild cheeses for them to come to the cheese world in the first place.”
And outside of Switzerland, it’s those economic headwinds that are yet to be weathered. Is Swiss cheese’s image strong enough to trump the threat of high-tariffs and their impact on prices? “It’s strong, but it’s not strong enough. When we have in another country much higher tax duty than our competitors in the European Union,” Hirt said, hinting at the much higher US import levies Switzerland faces (39%) compared to the EU (15%). Soon, this matter can be settled, with the Swiss hopeful to lower their US import levy to 15%.
“If we have the same level playing field as our European competitors, then yes: then these inner values are enough to promote Swiss cheese and to sell it,” Hirt concluded.
