World's best Gouda made in Belgium, not the Netherlands

Dutchies, you might want to look away in horror, because the world’s best Gouda cheese has been named for 2026, and it comes from Belgium, not the Netherlands. 

Two Belgian Gouda cheeses given gold medals

Ancienne Belgique and Vieux Roulerse, two Gouda cheeses made by the Deweer family on the Groendal cheese farm in Roeselare in Belgium, won gold at the Concours International de Lyon 2026.

The Concours is an annual event in France that sees thousands of food products from all over the world go before a panel of judges, who conduct blind tastings to choose the best and award them a coveted gold badge. 

Gouda is not a protected product and can be made outside the Netherlands

Ancienne Belgique was crowned above 2.200 other cheeses from 23 different countries and achieved the maximum 100 points for flavour, texture, balance, intensity and smell. 

That might seem like a strange state of affairs in the country where the cheese comes from, but while Gouda Holland is an EU protected product that must be made in the Netherlands from Dutch milk, other countries are free to make their own Gouda-style cheeses as well, and they apparently do it very well. 

“Our secret is that no matter how old, our hard cheeses melt in the mouth. It’s a combination of our neighbouring cheese countries: the hardness of the Dutch cheeses and the zing of French soft cheeses, and that is what people like,” Ancienne Belgique maker Carl-Victor Deweer told De Telegraaf.