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Cheese from France, Savoie, Haute-Savoie, Ain, Jura, Doubs, Haute-Saône, Côte-d'Or, Haute-Marne and nearby

Gruyère (French IGP)Gruyère

Raw cow milk is seeded with whey starters or natural rennet made on recuite and set with calf rennet in an open copper vat. The curd is cooked to 52 °C or more, pressed, salted and pre-ripened cool; a stay in a warm cellar above 15 °C then lets propionic bacteria form pea- to cherry-sized eyes. It ripens at least 120 days.

Recipe

Gruyère (French IGP), a photo from Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Gruyere alpage, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
No fixed amounts recordedThe specification fixes the ingredients and steps, not amounts. A vat makes at most 14 wheels.
Raw cow milkNo heat treatment above 40 °C; partial skimming allowed to standardise fat[cdc-gru2026]
Natural whey starters or natural rennet prepared on recuiteThey bring at least thermophilic lactobacilli; selected cultures are also allowed[cdc-gru2026]
Calf rennet[cdc-gru2026]
SaltAs brine or dry salt, then salt water and morge on the rind[cdc-gru2026]
Starternatural whey starters and/or natural rennet made on recuite, which bring at least thermophilic lactobacilli; selected cultures are also allowed

Total time across the recorded steps: 4.4 months

Start
Drag the bar or press Play
up to 40 °C

What changes: Starting material: raw cow milk, never heated above 40 °C

Step 1 of 8
Prepare the raw milk
Time
Not documented
Temperature
up to 40 °C
Set
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented
Which microbes the steps name, step by step
Lactobacilli

Pasteurisers, bactofugation and microfiltration are banned. Output: raw milk in the vat.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
white

Microbes at work in this step

Not documented for this step.

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Raw cow milk is seeded with whey starters or natural rennet made on recuite and set with calf rennet in an open copper vat. The curd is cooked to 52 °C or more, pressed, salted and pre-ripened cool; a stay in a warm cellar above 15 °C then lets propionic bacteria form pea- to cherry-sized eyes. It ripens at least 120 days. Made in 8 steps over 4.4 months. The longest step, ripen to at least 120 days, takes at least 3.9 months (Ministère de l'agriculture 2026) and runs at at least 4 °C (Ministère de l'agriculture 2026). Thermophilic and mesophilic lactobacilli and thermophilic streptococci and Propionic bacteria do most of the fermenting.

Key numbers
Main stepat least 3.9 monthsSet[cdc-gru2026]Ripen to at least 120 days
Temperatureat least 4 °CSet[cdc-gru2026]Ripen to at least 120 days

What makes this one different

Unlike Swiss Le Gruyère AOP, the French IGP must have pea- to cherry-size eyes from a warm-cellar propionic stage. Its milk is seeded with natural whey starters or natural rennet on recuite, which bring at least thermophilic lactobacilli; selected cultures are also allowed.

Rind
Rubbed, solid, grainy, golden to brown
Size
53–63 cm diameter, 13–16 cm high
Composition
IGP rules: 47–52 % fat in dry matter, at least 62 % dry matter, 0.6–1.7 g salt per 100 g
Ripening
At least 120 days after renneting

Related ferments

Safety

The cheese is made from raw milk. The specification bars any heat treatment of the milk above 40 °C, caps collection at two consecutive milkings, sets renneting by noon or midnight depending on the oldest milking, cooks the curd and whey to at least 52 °C and ripens at least 120 days after renneting; it also bans silage and other fermented forage. It gives these as production rules and sets no microbiological criteria. ANSES names Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli as hazards of raw-milk cheeses, and soft bloomy-rind and short-ripened uncooked pressed cheeses as the main sources. It advises pregnant women, people with weak immunity, people over 65 and young children to avoid raw-milk cheeses except cooked pressed ones such as gruyère or comté.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

The specification calls it one of the oldest French cheeses, made for several centuries in the east-central region bordering Switzerland, and says its name refers to the gruyers, officers who collected taxes on the mountain's timber. By the end of the 19th century its traditional zone matched the area of the fruitière system, in which milk producers pool milk in a cooperative dairy and hire the cheesemaker. Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 110/2013 of 6 February 2013 entered the name as a PGI for France over objections from Australia, New Zealand and US dairy bodies, who called it generic; the Commission treated it as a traditional name and required 'France' on the label next to it. The present specification was homologated by arrêté of 23 July 2026.

  1. [cdc-gru2026] Ministère de l'agriculture, Cahier des charges modifié de l'indication géographique protégée « Gruyère », homologated by arrêté of 23 July 2026, JORF of 31 July 2026 (BO-Agri n° 2026-32)spec
  2. [schubert1996] Schubert K., Ludwig W., Springer N., Kroppenstedt R.M., Accolas J.P., Fiedler F. 1996, Two coryneform bacteria isolated from the surface of French Gruyère and Beaufort cheeses are new species of the genus Brachybacterium, International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology 46:81–87, doi:10.1099/00207713-46-1-81paper
  3. [reg110-2013] European Commission, Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) No 110/2013 of 6 February 2013 entering a name in the register of protected designations of origin and protected geographical indications [Gruyère (PGI)]spec
  4. [anses2022] ANSES 2022, Fromages au lait cru, quels risques pour la santé et comment mieux les prévenir (8 April 2022)gov