ANSES maps safer raw-milk cheese practices for home cooks

Bottom line: ANSES has published an expert assessment that turns a complex raw-milk cheese safety question into a short kitchen checklist. People at greatest risk from foodborne illness should avoid raw-milk cheeses, with the exception of hard-pressed varieties such as Gruyère or Comté. Cheese should be stored at 4°C or below, and ANSES says raw-milk cheeses do not pose a health risk when they are cooked in an oven recipe.

This is a food-safety assessment, not a product recall. It also does not suggest that every raw-milk cheese carries the same level of risk. Instead, the French food-safety agency examined where control measures can be strengthened across the chain, from cattle herds and cheesemaking to household storage and cooking.

Which cheeses are the main focus?

The assessment’s second part focuses on three bacteria associated with most food poisoning linked to raw-milk cheeses: Salmonella, Listeria monocytogenes and Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli. ANSES identifies several categories as presenting the greatest concern: soft cheeses with surface mould, including Camembert, Brie and Crottin de Chèvre; washed-rind soft cheeses such as Munster and Livarot; and short-ripened, uncooked pressed cheeses such as Morbier, Reblochon and Saint-Nectaire.

The agency’s full announcement makes an important distinction between the production process and the final kitchen decision. Many preventive controls are applied before a cheese reaches a shop, but the remaining risk can still be influenced by how the cheese is stored and used at home.

Why the production process matters

ANSES and its expert working group built a model simulating how pathogenic bacteria could develop from farms through to consumers. The model used scientific literature together with data supplied by production sectors, allowing the experts to compare the likely effect of different interventions. ANSES has made the model available to professionals and researchers through an open scientific resource.

At farm level, the assessment points to keeping cattle herds free of bacteria considered especially important for human health. Detecting carrier animals and isolating them could reduce the chance of introducing those bacteria into disease-free herds. ANSES notes that the feasibility, cost and practical effectiveness of these proposals still need to be tested in the field before wider implementation.

At the cheesemaking stage, the agency highlights rapid acidification of milk. A sufficiently fast fall in pH slows bacterial multiplication early in production. The assessment recommends systematically checking acidification and, where needed, reinforcing it with suitable lactic ferments. Self-checks by producers can also help identify contamination early enough for corrective action.

These are professional controls rather than steps a home cook can reproduce. They matter because they show why raw-milk cheese safety cannot be reduced to a single instruction applied at the end of the process. The underlying technical findings are detailed in the ANSES opinion and report.

What home cooks should do

Check whether the cheese is made from raw milk. If you are pregnant, immunocompromised, over 65 or serving a young child, follow ANSES’s advice to avoid raw-milk cheeses, apart from the hard-pressed exceptions it lists, such as Gruyère or Comté.
Keep the cheese at 4°C or below. Storage temperature is one of the consumer practices that ANSES’s model can evaluate. Use a refrigerator compartment that can maintain this limit, and return the cheese to the refrigerator promptly after serving.
Use oven cooking when the recipe calls for it. ANSES specifically identifies raw-milk cheeses cooked in an oven recipe as not posing a health risk. Follow the recipe’s complete cooking method rather than treating a brief melt or surface browning as a universal safety rule.
Do not invent a cooking time or temperature. The ANSES news announcement does not give one universal oven setting for every cheese and recipe. Use a reliable recipe suited to the dish and avoid presenting an unsupported timing as a guaranteed safety test.

A measured recommendation, not a blanket ban

The practical message is more precise than either “raw-milk cheese is always dangerous” or “cooking solves everything.” ANSES places particular emphasis on vulnerable groups, specific cheese categories, cold storage and properly cooked oven dishes. For other consumers, the agency’s announcement describes a combination of controls rather than a universal prohibition.

That makes the advice useful beyond this single assessment. When choosing cheese for a shared meal, identify whether it is made from raw milk, consider who will eat it, keep it properly chilled and use a complete oven recipe when appropriate. These decisions complement the controls carried out by farmers, cheesemakers and food businesses; they do not replace official recalls or local food-safety advice.

ANSES’s broader conclusion is that safer raw-milk cheese depends on coordinated action at every stage. For home cooks, the most reliable actions are also the simplest: know the product, respect the cold chain and take extra care when serving people more vulnerable to foodborne illness.