ADVENTURES IN TASTE
Tracey Colley From counter to classroom, how the Academy of Cheese was built.
From Counter to Classroom: How Tracey
Colley Helped Build the Academy
of Cheese
For decades, cheese knowledge was something you picked up by standing behind a counter, working alongside experienced mongers and asking questions. There were brilliant books and generous mentors, but there was no shared pathway into the profession. Today, more than 10,000 people in almost 100 countries have begun changing that story through the Academy of Cheese. We sat down with founding director Tracey Colley to discover how a volunteer-led idea became one of the world’s leading cheese education programmes—and why education remains at the heart of artisan cheese.
When people meet Tracey Colley today, they often know her as one of the driving forces behind the Academy of Cheese. But her journey into cheese began long before certificates, examinations and international study programmes.
Raised in the British countryside, Tracey’s first job in cheese came as a teenager working in a cottage cheese factory while saving money before university. It wasn’t glamorous— testing cheese, checking weights and carrying out quality control—but it sparked a lifelong fascination with dairy.
Years later, after opening her own award- winning delicatessen in Ludlow, Shropshire, that fascination became a career.
“It was the time when local food was really taking off,” she recalls. “We stocked more than a hundred cheeses, supplied Michelin-starred restaurants and spent every day introducing people to artisan cheese.”
Running a successful cheese counter taught her something else too, there was no clear route into becoming a cheesemonger.
Learning on the job
Before the Academy of Cheese existed, education was largely informal. New staff learned by shadowing experienced colleagues. Cheesemakers visited shops to talk about their products. Everyone collected their own library of favourite books, building knowledge piece by piece. It worked—but only up to a point.
“There wasn’t a structured educational programme,” Tracey explains. “There was nothing that brought together tasting, presentation, communication and understanding how cheese is made.”
For many people, cheesemonging wasn’t even recognised as a profession.
“People would ask what I did and I’d say I worked in cheese. Quite often they’d laugh.”
Yet behind every cheese counter were skilled professionals balancing science, agriculture, food safety, retail, hospitality and storytelling.
The industry needed something that reflected that professionalism.
Building something the industry asked for
The Academy of Cheese wasn’t the vision of one individual, it began when six volunteers answered a challenge from the industry itself. Could they create a structured education programme that worked for everyone—not just cheesemongers, but cheesemakers, wholesalers, buyers, retailers and anyone whose work revolved around cheese?
Ten years later, the answer seems clear.
The Academy now reaches learners in 96 countries, with online learning making cheese education accessible well beyond Britain’s shores.
Its success came from recognising something fundamental, Cheese may be local, learning doesn’t have to be.
A community built around curiosity
One reason the Academy has flourished is that it reflects the culture of the cheese world itself.
“The cheese community is incredibly friendly,” says Tracey. “I’ve made so many lifelong friends through cheese.”
That observation resonates deeply with Cheese Journeys founder Anna Juhl.
For Anna, education has always been central to the tours—not simply teaching guests about cheese, but introducing them to the people, places and traditions behind every wheel.
“Our vision has always been to explore, educate and enrich,” Anna explains. “Guests don’t just want to taste cheese. They want to understand the culture, the landscape and the people who make it.”
The two organisations evolved independently, yet arrived at remarkably similar conclusions. People don’t simply want more cheese, they want a deeper relationship with it.
Learning doesn’t end when the tour does
That shared philosophy has led to a growing partnership between Cheese Journeys and the Academy of Cheese.
Many guests return home inspired—but asking the same question. “What next?”
The answer is continuing education.
Guests who travel with Cheese Journeys now have the opportunity to continue their learning through Academy of Cheese Level One, reconnecting with fellow travellers while working towards an internationally recognised qualification. It’s more than a course. it’s a way of keeping the journey alive.
As Tracey puts it: “What an amazing addition.”
From Curd to Counter
The partnership extends beyond enthusiasts.
One of the most exciting collaborations is Curd to Counter, a programme designed to support professional cheesemongers.
The concept is simple, bring cheesemongers to the farms, let them spend time with the people making the cheese, allow them to understand production first- hand before returning home to educate customers and colleagues.
It’s a scholarship of sorts—combining travel, immersion and formal education.
Selected mongers receive Academy of Cheese training alongside their experience, helping them become stronger ambassadors for artisan cheese within their own communities.
The impact reaches far beyond the individuals taking part.
“It benefits shop owners, cheesemakers and consumers,” Anna says. “Everyone gains.”
The forgotten craft of affinage
Education doesn’t stop at cheesemaking, it extends to caring for cheese too.
Tracey is particularly passionate about the Academy’s Affiner of the Year competition, now one of the most distinctive events in the cheese calendar.
Competitors receive young cheeses and spend months maturing, washing, wrapping and nurturing them before presenting the finished results to an expert judging panel.
The competition has become a celebration of affinage—the craft of maturing cheese—which has long been central to European cheese culture but less recognised in Britain.
It has also become a place of innovation, Cheesemakers have adopted techniques discovered by competitors, while entirely new cheeses have emerged from the process.
Education, it turns out, works both ways. Creating ambassadors
Throughout our conversation, one word kept resurfacing. Ambassador.
Whether they’re cheesemakers, cheesemongers or enthusiastic travellers, both the Academy of Cheese and Cheese Journeys believe knowledge creates confidence—and confident people tell better stories.
Those stories encourage customers to seek out artisan cheese, visit independent cheesemongers and support the people making remarkable food.
For Tracey, that’s what success really looks like, without cheesemakers, there is no Academy, without cheesemongers, there is no route between farm and consumer, without curious enthusiasts, there is no future market for artisan cheese.
Education connects all three. Looking ahead
The Academy of Cheese has ambitious plans for the future, from expanding internationally to developing new specialist courses and welcoming its first Masters of Cheese.
Yet its mission remains surprisingly simple, help more people understand cheese.
Whether someone is beginning their first Level One course, travelling across Europe with Cheese Journeys, or spending months perfecting the maturation of a single wheel of Cheddar, the destination is the same. A deeper appreciation of one of the world’s most extraordinary foods. Because great cheese deserves knowledgeable champions—and the more ambassadors it has, the brighter its future becomes.
