How Many Different Cheese Products Are There?

When you try to break down the number of cheese products that are on the market, basically the number is endless and is probably one that cannot be quantified. However, what you can do instead is break it down into categories, cheese products come in a variety of products to please all of their customers and cheese lovers. You may enjoy specialty cheeses, mass produced cheese, pasteurized cheese products, or cheese curds.

Specialty Cheeses

Your specialty cheeses are the ones that you generally can’t find at the corner store or in the grocery store. They are the ones that aren't mass produced and generally go through a much more personalized process where they are generally handmade and put in a cellar to age. These cheeses are made with love and have very distinct flavors to them.

Mass Produced Cheeses

The mass produced cheeses are the ones that most of us eat every day. These are the cheeses that are made on large dairy farms, where they are making large quantities of cheese at a time. There are all kinds of cheeses that are mass produced. You have your cheddars which come in a big variety; you have your Swiss cheeses, mozzarellas, Colby, Monterey jack, and many others. These are the cheeses that we put on our sandwiches daily, that we cook with, that we cube up and eat, there are all kinds of these.

Processed Cheeses

There are some people that despise processed cheese products and others that eat them up. There are a large variety of processed cheese products on the market today. The most common are the ones that people buy that are pre-sliced and individually wrapped, they come in all flavor varieties, Swiss, cheddar, white cheddar, American, and many more. These cheeses use certain manufactured ingredients to give them a very creamy texture.

Cheese Curds

Cheese curds are their own cheese product. These are more of a delicacy that people really enjoy but that may not be available all over the United States. Cheese curds are made before the cheese is formed into a block and because it has not aged, it is generally squeaky. There are many different things that people will do with cheese curds, some will just eat them as is, others will flavor them, and some will batter or bread them and fry them. However you enjoy your cheese curds, there are many different ways to eat them.

-Written by Viktoira Carella