Do plant-based products belong in a cheese competition? As we cheese lovers learned in January, a plant-based entry was a finalist in the Good Food Awards cheese category. That’s a first. Many people, including me, weren’t even aware that non-dairy foods could compete in the category, which specifies that the entries be “made with milk from animals raised using good animal husbandry.”

Not surprisingly, the outcome raised some hackles and generated a lively discussion in Planet Cheese. A few days ago, Good Food Awards issued a statement about what they intend to do if the plant-based finalist wins the category. (The awards ceremony is April 29.) The statement implies that their decision applies to this year only and that entry criteria will evolve. The unanswered question: evolve how?

Below is the GFA statement plus reaction from a few industry leaders. Please use the Comments section at the end of the post to tell me what you think of GFA’s approach and how (or if) the cheese category requirements should evolve.

“We are working on reviewing the criteria and coming up with a solution that recognizes how different these foods are. For this year, we wanted to ensure, given the excellent feedback about how very different a product non-dairy cheeses are to the cheeses and makers upholding a long and rich food tradition and their craftsmanship that we celebrate each year, we’ve decided that if a Finalist plant-based cheese received a high enough score to become a Winner, they will be awarded; however we will NOT eliminate the next highest scoring dairy cheese - we will simply have one more winner than usual. We feel this solution honors and fulfills our commitment to all those who entered the category this year under the current guidelines (which will evolve in the future), while ensuring we are fully recognizing and honoring the same number of talented cheesemakers practicing a very different, complex, traditional craft.”

Is this a wise and fair decision, an artful dodge or a compromise that’s likely to please no one?

“This may get them out of a jam this year, seeing as how they already accepted both types of submissions into the same categories, but it does nothing to address the cheese industry's dismay that GFA endorsed the plant-based producers co-opting of the word ‘cheese,’” says Andy Hatch, co-owner of Uplands Cheese in Wisconsin, producer of the acclaimed Pleasant Ridge Reserve and Rush Creek Reserve. “What I really want to know is if GFA intends to continue doing this or if they're going to take a stand for real cheese.”

Washington’s Cascadia Creamery produced two GFA cheese finalists this year: Cloud Cap and Sleeping Beauty. Creamery co-owner Marci Shuman points to GFA’s tagline celebrating "tasty, authentic and responsible fare."  

“Plant-based cheese-like products are not ‘authentic,’” says Shuman. “Let's face it, non-dairy cheese isn't cheese. It might be a cheese-like substance, but it isn't cheese.” She would prefer to see GFA create a separate category for plant-based products “since the processes are completely different from the authentic/traditional products that they are trying to emulate.”

Laura Werlin, the cheese educator and author and frequent GFA judge, was also left unsatisfied by the ruling. “I still think it demonstrates a lack of clarity on the subject,” she said by email. “How can you compare cheese with non-cheese? Is cell-based ahi tuna the same as one caught at sea? Their revised rule doesn’t address the fundamental issue of whether plant-based cheeses should be judged against animal-derived ones.”

Cheese isn’t the only GFA category affected by this issue (the charcuterie category has plant-based entries), and GFA isn’t the only competition grappling with the matter. The American Cheese Society oversees an annual judging that does not accept plant-based entries.

ACS competition categories are based on Code of Federal Regulations standards of identity for cheese, says immediate past judging chair Rachel Perez.

“The process of making plant-based cheese is very different from animal milk-based cheeses,” Perez wrote me in an email, “so vegan cheese would have to be separated out for an ‘apples to apples’ judging. The dairy science expertise we look for in our technical judges wouldn’t fully translate to vegan cheese so we'd have to vet a whole new set of judges.”

The new world of engineered foods is creating some definitional dilemmas. On Planet Cheese, I hasten to add, cheese comes from milk.