Murray’s Cheese Wins 7 Awards at American Cheese Society Competition
Seven cheeses from Kroger-owned Murray’s Cheese’s Cave Aged line have been named winners at the 2024 American Cheese Society (ACS) Judging & Competition. Every year, the ACS competition showcases the talent and craft of American cheesemakers, judging each cheese through a technical and aesthetic evaluation.
Since 1962, Murray’s Cheese has been a mainstay in New York City and has evolved into a specialty food destination that makes, sources, sells and serves exceptional cheese. Murray’s joined the Kroger family in 2017. Its cheese counters and experts guide customers in their cheese shopping at 1,200 stores, including Kroger, Ralphs, QFC, Fred Meyer, Harris Teeter and many others throughout the country.
This is the 20th anniversary of Murray’s state-of-the-art cheese caves in New York City, where the company ages and ripens cheeses made by cheesemakers around the world. In recent years, Murray's introduced its own line of Cave Aged cheeses, with more than a dozen one-of-a-kind cheeses developed in collaboration with local creameries or cheesemakers, using their proprietary aging techniques and often a Murray’s original recipe. These projects represent years of development, research, tasting and testing, and the cheeses are available only at Murray’s.
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“We are beyond thrilled to celebrate our biggest year yet at the American Cheese Society,” said Nick Tranchina, president of the cheese retailer. “I am extraordinarily proud of the creativity and innovation of our affinage team, and I want to give a big thank-you to our cheesemaker partners for their excellence and support.”
The list of award-winning cheeses this year is as follows:
- Cave Aged Original Buttermilk Basque: 1st place in Sheep’s Milk Cheese Aged 31-60 Days category
- Murray’s Cave Aged Limited Double Doe: 1st place in Washed Cheeses Made From Mixed or Other Milk category
- Cave Aged Original Stockinghall Cheddar: 1st place in Clothbound Cheddar Aged Up to 12 Months category
- Cave Aged Extra Aged Stockinghall Cheddar: 2nd place in Clothbound Cheddar Aged Over 13 Months category
- Cave Aged Reserve Greensward: 2nd place in Cheeses Wrapped in Bark, Leaves or Grass category
- Cave Aged Reserve Carpenter’s Wheel: 2nd place in Goat’s Milk Cheese Aged Over 60 days category
- Murray’s Cave Aged Original 80:10:10: 3rd place Soft-Ripened Washed Rind Cheese category
Murray’s has celebrations planned at its Greenwich Village flagship store this fall highlighting the cave-aged cheeses, including the debut of select cave-aged cheeses at its cheese counters in Kroger stores.
Late last year, Murray’s introduced a long-term club subscription program, allowing customers to choose from among five programs to have unique cheeses sent to their homes. The new Murray’s Cheese Club replaces the retailer's previous one-month cheese club subscription. According to Murray’s, the expanded program is based on customer feedback, which showed that people are interested in more curation and more cheeses.
Meanwhile, other winners at this year's ACS Judging & Competition include Tillamook Extra Sharp White Cheddar in an Aged Cheddar category. BelGioioso Cheese also won first place for several of its cheeses, including its Cow & Sheep Gorgonzola, Fontina, and Mascarpone.
The 2024 ACS Judging & Competition received 1,454 entries in 120 categories and awarded 370 medals. The complete list of winners is available online.
Cincinnati-based Kroger has nearly half a million associates who serve more than 11 million customers daily through a digital shopping experience and retail food stores under a variety of banner names. The company is No. 4 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2024 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America. PG also named Kroger one of the Retailers of the Century
