With the continuous development of production technology, the improvement of product standards and regulatory systems, the categories of cheeses are becoming more and more refined, and the forms are becoming more and more diverse. Antion will introduce cheese, process(ed) cheese and cheese products from the perspective of product standards.

According to the definition of GB 5420-2021 National Food Safety Standard Cheese, cheese refers to a kind of dairy product in a ripened or unripened, soft, semi-rigid, rigid or especially rigid form, possibly having a coat, whose ratio of whey protein/casein does not exceed the corresponding ratio (except ricotta cheese) in milk (or other dairy animals). It can be obtained by two methods: a) After the protein in milk and/or dairy products is coagulated or partially coagulated under the action of rennet or other appropriate coagulants (or directly use the curd after coagulating as raw material), add or not add fermentation bacteria, edible salt, food additives and nutritional fortification substances, discharge or not discharge whey (when the protein curd after coagulating is used as raw material), solid or semi-solid products obtained through fermentation or non-fermentation processes; (b) The process includes coagulating of proteins in milk and/or dairy products, it then gives physical and chemical characters of the finished products or similar to that described in step (a).

According to the definition of GB 25192-2022 National Food Safety Standard Process(ed) Cheese and Cheese Products, process(ed) cheese is a product made from cheese (proportion ＞50%) as the main raw material, with other raw materials, with or without food additives and nutritional fortification substances, through heating, stirring, emulsification (drying), etc. Cheese products are products made from cheese (proportion 15%~50%) as the main raw material, with other raw materials, with or without food additives and nutritional fortification substances, through heating, stirring, emulsification (drying), etc.

From the definitions, it can be seen that cheese, process(ed) cheese and cheese products have significant differences in production raw materials and their proportions. Antion summarized the differences between the three types of products in terms of raw materials and production processes for reference:

Source: Antion

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