World Jersey Cheese Awards in the Island of Jersey

The World Jersey Cattle Bureau is to stage the inaugural World Jersey Cheese Awards in the Island of Jersey, the home of the Jersey Cow.

The first ever World Jersey Cheese Awards will take place in May this year and organisers are hoping to attract more than 100 worldwide entries. The event is being held in Jersey to coincide with the 18th World Jersey Cattle Bureau conference and is being organised by the Royal Jersey Agricultural & Horticultural Society under the auspices of the WJCB.

It will be the first ever, breed specific, International cheese competition, featuring cheeses from across the world made purely with ‘Jersey’ milk. The organisers are particularly pleased to announce that Chris Ashby, one of the UK’s leading cheese experts, will be heading up the judging panel. She will be joined by leading chefs, food writers, food buyers, and representatives of Genuine Jersey and the Jersey convivium of Slow Food.

Judging will take place on Friday 23rd May with the closing date for entries being April 28th 2008. Details of the competition along with class schedules and entry forms are available from www.jerseycheese.com. As this is the inaugural year of the competition there will be no class entry fees and organisers will cover the cost of shipping the cheeses to Jersey from a consolidation point in each country of origin. It is hoped that this will encourage many of the smaller artisan cheese-makers to exhibit their cheeses and show the diversity of Jersey cheeses available worldwide.

The cheeses will be entered into one of 14 classes and awarded with either a bronze, silver or gold award. The gold award winners will be put forward and judged against each other to find the Gold Riband award of The World’s Best Jersey Cheese 2008. Major populations of ‘Jersey’ cattle can be found in the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Denmark and Latin America in addition to many smaller countries. There is already a real buzz about the event in each of these jurisdictions.

James Godfrey, Chief Executive, World Jersey Cattle Bureau said:

“With an estimated world wide population in excess of 2 million head, the ‘Jersey’ is now the second most numerous breed of dairy cow and an important influence in the global dairy industry. We felt that the World Jersey Cheese Awards would be a fantastic way to showcase the worldwide success of the Jersey cow on its home territory. We’ve received overwhelming support from our members, even from as far a field as Australia and New Zealand! It’s going to be a very exciting event and a highly contested competition that will raise the profile of cheeses made with Jersey Milk worldwide.”

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