Two Romanian cheese producers receive international recognition at prestigious competition in Portugal
Bucharest, Nov 19 /Agerpres/ – A mature cheese produced at an educational farm in Gheorgheni and a “therapeutic” curd made in a small farm in the commune Ghimes-Faget located on the border between Harghita and Bacau counties (center), have received gold and bronze medals, respectively, at a prestigious cheese competition recently held in Portugal.
The two mature cheeses, which were entered in the World Cheese Awards 2024, held in the Portuguese city of Viseu, were assessed by an international jury of 240 specialists, alongside 4,786 other cheeses from around the world.
The cheese from Gheorgheni, which was awarded a gold medal in the “mature semi-hard cows’ milk cheese” category, was produced at the Caritas Rural Community Development educational farm of the Caritas Association by Portik Hegyi Loránd, who has been specializing in this field for the past 17 years.
The director of Caritas Rural Community Development, Kastal László, told AGERPRES that the winning product is “Mature mountain cheese made from raw cows’ milk”, which has been aged for six months.
The director of Caritas Rural Community Development emphasized that this is the first participation in the international competition, and the result shows that the path they are on is the right one.
The “Ghimes therapeutic curd”, produced by Sarig Attila, who owns a small farm in the commune of Ghimes-Faget, was awarded with a bronze medal, in the category mature semi-hard cows’ milk cheese”
His winning product at the world competition in Portugal was also made from raw cows’ milk, was aged for six months and is therapeutic because the eight cows he keeps eat over 60 species of medicinal plants.
He admits that in recent years he has participated in competitions in his country and in Hungary and received numerous awards and thought it would be the right time to enter, for the first time, the World Cheese Championship.
Because Portugal was “a bit far away”, he asked some friends from Hungary, who were going to the competition, to bring his sample of “Ghimes therapeutic curd”, and the result announced by the jury made him very happy.
