Research & publications
The Federation publishes for one reason: members kept having the same arguments with no numbers to hand. Four standing reports a year, the journal articles the committees commission, and the Monday brief that carries the week.
Figures from the Federation’s own annual assessment. Methodology notes are published with every report and are open to non-members.
Four reports, published on the same cycle every year so that a member planning a season knows when the numbers land. Members get all four as they publish; non-members can buy them individually.
Market · published January
Where the 22.6 million metric tons are made and where they are eaten, by category and by region, with a ten-year projection. The section members read first is the one on which styles are growing in markets that did not previously buy them — the answer has changed three years running.
Members: in the archive on publication. Non-members: request a copy.
Trade · published April
Tariff structures, the non-tariff barriers that cost more than tariffs, sanitary requirements, and what trade agreements have actually done to member shipments as opposed to what they were said they would do. Written for a maker deciding whether an export line is worth the paperwork.
Feeds the advocacy program directly.
Regulatory · published July
A comparative read of food safety rules, labeling requirements and certification standards across the regions members work in, with the divergences called out rather than averaged away. Raw-milk rules get their own chapter because they generate more member questions than everything else combined.
Maintained with the Food Safety and Advocacy committees.
Consumer · published October
What buyers say they want, what they actually put in a basket, and the gap between the two. Tracks health framing, sustainability claims, price sensitivity by format, and the slow drift of specialty styles into ordinary weekly shopping.
Presented at the October conference before it is published.
Longer pieces, reviewed by members who know the subject, published when they are ready rather than to a schedule. Four from the current volume.
Biological, economic and regulatory uncertainty arrive at a creamery through the same door, and the paper’s argument is that treating them as three problems is why small makes fail at the third one. Includes the failure taxonomy the Food Safety Committee has since adopted in the HACCP curriculum.
How craft producers absorb modern food science without losing what makes the make theirs. The interesting finding is negative: the producers who described the two as opposed were markedly more likely to have had a serious quality failure in the previous three years.
Succession is the quiet crisis in the trade: what a maker knows is mostly undocumented, and it leaves when they do. The article sets out what can realistically be written down, what can only be transferred by standing next to someone, and why the apprenticeship strand is built the way it is.
Hotter summers change the cave before they change the herd. A strategic read of what members are already adapting — ripening schedules, cave engineering, seasonal make plans — and what the trade has not begun to address.
Members read the full text in the archive. Non-members can request an individual article; abstracts are open to everyone.
One email a week to every member: what prices did, what moved in policy, what other members are doing, and what closes this fortnight. Written to be read in five minutes by somebody who has already been up for four hours.
Behind it sits the archive — every issue since the Federation started publishing, searchable, alongside the competition score sheets, the comment filings and every recorded session. It is the most under-used thing in the membership, and members who find it tend to find it eighteen months in, by accident.
The blog is the open half of the same work and needs no membership at all.
The blog, the six competition category standards, the Cheese Library, report summaries and every methodology note. A standard nobody can read is not a standard.
The brief archive, full report text, competition score sheets and session recordings. Dues start at $170 and every tier gets the same access.
Committees commission work when an argument needs settling. If you have the question, or the data, write to the Standards or Food Safety committee through the contact page.
Put a question forwardQuote it with attribution — that is what it is for, and a member reprinting a brief item in their own newsletter is a compliment rather than a problem. Reproducing a whole report or a full set of score sheets needs a word with Communications first, mainly so that we can point you at the current version. The competition category standards may be reproduced in full by anyone, member or not.
Questions about a figure, a method or a citation go to research@morecheese.org. Advertising and sponsorship go to advertising@morecheese.org, and the answer to “can I have the member list” is on the directory FAQ.