Building India’s Artisan Cheese Movement: One Student at a Time

The Indian Cheese Industry: Speaking the Same Language

India’s artisan cheese industry is at a pivotal moment. Young, fragmented, and brimming with potential, it faces a challenge familiar to emerging food movements worldwide: how do you build credibility and coherence in an industry that’s still finding its footing?

Cheese Education in India

When I completed my own Academy of Cheese Level One Certification during the COVID period, I immediately recognised its relevance for India. Our cheese landscape is characterized by enthusiasm and experimentation, but access to formal education, shared vocabulary, and globally benchmarked frameworks has been scarce.

The challenge isn’t a lack of talent or passion – it’s the absence of structure. Indian cheesemakers work within unique contexts: diverse milk systems, challenging climates, evolving regulations, nascent consumer awareness, and significant market constraints. What we needed was a framework that offered clarity without intimidation, structure without rigidity.

That’s exactly what Academy of Cheese Level One provides. Whilst I deliver the full Academy-prescribed curriculum, I contextualise the learning for Indian realities. Drawing from my experience as both a cheesemaker and founder of an artisanal cheese brand, the program addresses where our industry stands today and where it could go.

Six Journeys, One Foundation

The true measure of any educational program is in the paths it enables. Over the past four years, I’ve had the privilege of teaching Academy of Cheese Level One to individuals from across India; each bringing their own backgrounds, aspirations, and narratives.

What follows are the stories of six graduates I’ve taught, representing the breadth and diversity of India’s emerging cheese community. From established cheesemakers seeking to refine their craft to complete newcomers discovering their calling, these journeys illustrate how a shared educational foundation can support wildly different paths – all contributing to the same growing ecosystem.

I’m constantly reminded that education isn’t just about transferring knowledge – it’s about building community.

Namrata Sundaresan

Manya, Loam Bistro & Artisanal Cheese Shop, Pune

Manya completed her Level One Certification in 2021, right at the start of her professional cheese journey. The course gave her foundational understanding of cheese styles, sensory evaluation, and global frameworks: confidence and clarity that would prove essential.

Today, she runs Loam Bistro and Artisanal Cheese Shop in Pune, but here’s what makes it special: Loam functions as a collective rather than a single-producer outlet. Alongside her own house-made cheeses, she showcases artisanal cheeses from across India.

The structure and vocabulary from Level One enable her to curate thoughtfully, educate customers, and build trust. Her success demonstrates how foundational cheese education can translate into sustainable retail and hospitality models that support the broader community

Asma Sayed, Co-founder & Cheesemonger, Bombay Fromagerie, Mumbai

Asma’s cheese journey began through hands-on work with pastoral communities and Indian cheesemakers. When she completed Level One in February 2023, it wasn’t about learning cheese from scratch – it was about complementing her practical experience with formal, internationally recognized education.

The course strengthened her technical vocabulary, sensory analysis skills, and ability to articulate cheese characteristics with precision. As Co-founder and Cheesemonger at Bombay Fromagerie, her work now spans curation, retail, catering, pairing workshops, and consulting for gourmet stores.

Level One enabled her to communicate with authority during educational workshops and client interactions, supporting the institutionalization of cheesemongering and cheese education in India.

Abdul Razik, Dairy Technologist, Cochin

Abdul represents a crucial but often overlooked segment: the technical and commercial side of the dairy ecosystem. As a Techno-Commercial Executive for dairy ingredients, he completed Level One in February 2025 to strengthen his understanding of cheese science, quality, and sensory evaluation.

The structured tasting, defect analysis, and sensory frameworks have directly supported his professional work – improving his confidence in technical discussions with customers and colleagues.

His journey highlights an important truth: Academy of Cheese education isn’t just for makers and mongers. It extends into upstream and downstream dairy roles, creating a more informed and capable industry at every level.

Adithya Krishnamoorthy, Aspiring Cheesemonger, Chennai

Not everyone who completes Level One is already working in cheese – and that’s exactly the point. Adithya completed the course in March 2025 as a way to formalize a long-standing personal passion. Professionally a language trainer, the course provided him with credibility, structured knowledge, and the confidence to engage with the food industry more seriously.

For Adithya, Level One functions as a bridge between interest and possibility. It has clarified his pathway toward his long-term aspiration of opening a boutique fromagerie in Chennai, demonstrating how the course supports individuals at the exploration stage of their cheese journey.

Abhilasha, Cheesemaker, Queso.in, Assam

Abhilasha leads a small, women-run cheese production unit in Assam under the brand Queso.in. When she completed Level One in February 2025, she’d already been making cheese for a year. For her, the course provided structure and refinement rather than initiation.

Cheese Foundation

Collectively, these journeys illustrate how Academy of Cheese Level One operates in India: not as a prescriptive qualification, but as a shared starting point. Participants move into cheesemaking, mongering, retail, education, and technical roles – each shaped by the same foundational framework.

In a young industry, this shared structure is critical. It enables confidence, collaboration, and long-term growth while allowing each individual to define their own path forward.

India’s artisan cheese movement is still being written. But with every student who gains the language to describe what they taste, the confidence to experiment with purpose, and the framework to build sustainable businesses, we’re laying the foundation for something lasting. The work isn’t about creating uniformity – it’s about creating conversation. And that conversation is just beginning.

As I continue to teach and support new cohorts of students across India, I’m constantly reminded that education isn’t just about transferring knowledge – it’s about building community. Each person I teach becomes part of a network that’s collectively shaping what artisan cheese means in India. And that, ultimately, is the most rewarding part of this work.