How to: Display cheese beautifully

There are myriad ways to showcase your cheese selection – and how you choose to do it will be dictated by the size and style of your shop. If you’re a tiny deli, a grab and go fridge with pre-portioned pieces might suit you well. While grandiose food halls or larger specialist market stalls can go to town, stacking their finest fromages in impressive towers – which certainly do catch the eye.

However big or small your cheese collection, here are a few pointers to help set you in the right direction.

‘Grab and go’ and multidecks

Love them or loathe them (and most customers do love them) truckles are a big part of the conversation when it comes to ‘grab and go’ fridges, says Dylan Fourie, deli manager at Macknade. “There’s a bit of a truckle war at the moment,” he laughs, saying their portability, long shelf life, and the fact they’re already wrapped and simple for customers to understand, makes them an easy win in retail.

Beyond these, he thinks you should limit what’s on offer here, and stick mostly to varieties your customers already know. “It’s ‘grab and go’ for a reason – it’s not a considered purchase. So we include things like Halloumi and Camembert. And we have four to five different types of Mozzarella.”

The only time the team ‘go to town’ is around Christmas, when the variety increases, aligning with the trend towards bigger basket spends. So customers might find a mini Mont D’or nestled by the Cheddars. 

Speaking of Cheddar, they’re an important part of the multideck experience. “We normally have a few block Cheddars in ours – a mild, mature and creamy so there’s a bit of variation,” says Dylan, who recommends cutting most of your selection into 180-200g pieces, though with Cheddar and Parmesan you might offer smaller pieces too. “They’re ideal if people are making a cheese sauce,” he explains. “We have a beautiful deli counter with around 80 cheeses, but here we offer cheese customers can just pop in their regular basket with their milk, eggs and bread.”

Alongside everyday wins, the food hall has a collection of what Dylan calls ‘wild cards’ - five regularly changing cheeses chosen by the team to add a point of difference for those shoppers who don’t have the time (or confidence) to approach the counter. It’s a lovely device for helping them to discover new flavours.

Keep on top of costings, Dylan adds. “Don’t try to retail cheeses upwards of £10. ‘Grab and go’ cheeses have almost no labour costs involved. Behind the counter, with the more expensive varieties, you’re working hard to make that margin, but in ‘grab and go’, you’ve got a set margin. It’s easy, people are making their own choices.”

Labelling is a final consideration in the multideck. “Some of our cheeses come in, and there’s no English on the label. It’s down to us to ensure each piece gives customers the right amount of information.” Don’t complicate things though, he concludes. “You shouldn’t be too elaborate by calling things by their brand or given name. If it’s a Camembert, label it as a Camembert!”

Open horizontal displays

One of the most visually impactful ways to showcase your cheeses is as whole wheels layered in open displays on a counter top – as at Neal’s Yard Dairy or The Courtyard Dairy. 

Cheese expert and author Ned Palmer, who spent his formative years in cheese working for Neal’s Yard Dairy, says he finds this method of display evokes the best reaction from customers, who are wowed (especially if it’s their first time in store) by the effect of abundance and bountifulness.

“You want to make it all look beautiful and enticing, and this is one of the best ways to do that,” he explains. But a striking display of this kind starts with the very finest condition of cheese – when it’s front and centre in the shop, there really is nowhere to hide.

Inspect whole cheeses for blemishes and imperfections (perfectly fine with a natural product but you might want to turn these sides away from the front). Cheeses that have already been cut will need ‘facing’. “The face might be starting to fade, even if cheese has been stored under clingfilm. Scrape off the front and neaten it up. Then taste everything before you put it out. Some things might have over ripened or lost their peak.” 

Having the right number of cheeses in this set up is important, Ned advises. “If you’re in a smallish deli where sales are slower, have fewer cheeses – too many and they could degrade in quality. Pick three Cheddars and then I would get, say, five other cheeses and look after them really well.”

As for constructing your display? “Twos and threes stacked work well. Think of the architecture of it. Neal’s Yard liked to have a tall stack either side, swooping to a valley in the middle, like an amphitheatre.”

If you have space, you can layer your displays in this way so they look like “lovely still lifes”. Giving some ‘hero’ cheeses their own area, set alone, perhaps on a stand, is a good device for shining a light on varieties that are eating well at that time too.

And “put similar things together”. “Bloomy rinds, washed rinds, blues. Place the cheeses so when customers walk up and down the counters they can find what they’re looking for, but also, visually this looks nice – having big bursts of blue or white together.”

Another way to make these displays more striking is considering what you place the cheeses on, Ned says. “White cheeses look great on black slate. And get some worn old wooden boards of different thicknesses for a variation on height and depth.”

Something many fail to consider, in this type of cheese layout, is the practicality of actually reaching the products, Ned adds. “You can have a big, beautiful display, but what if you can’t get past that big tower to the working piece? Always have a working piece you’ll cut from and use for tastings closest to you and unwrapped!”

Closed upright fridges

There’s a trend, being seen in lots of modern delis and food halls, towards long banks of tall fridge units with doors for displaying cheese.

To the traditionalist, this might seem counterintuitive. Surely having cheeses displayed under glass, with a member of staff ready and waiting to serve is the best way to sell them? This isn’t always the case, as Mark Kacary at The Norfolk Deli has found out.

The deli recently invested in display fridges as a way to balance attractive presentation with energy efficiency. “Our old open-fronted cabinets were costing us around £5 per day each to run,” he explains. “The new ones – with doors – cost just £1 per day. A significant saving!”

Mark says they’re quieter, and designed with deeper shelves, so they can store more stock. Each shelf is individually lit too, allowing customers to see the cheeses more clearly, without having to peer into a counter.

Overall, he says it’s been a great improvement for the shop and its customers. “There’s a degree of a wow factor as they walk along, looking up and down the five levels of cheese we offer. Fundamentally, in times like these, to be able to say we are making a £13 a day energy saving too, compared to what we had previously, suggests a quick return on our investment. It also helps with our green credentials.”

Traditional counter

The most common way of displaying cheese is in an open backed cabinet or counter managed by customer-facing staff. When it comes to stocking these, Dylan says volume is everything – but too many cheeses, equally, can be overwhelming. 

“Displaying them in tiers, stacking them on top of one another works well. We also have our cheeses in rows, so four cheeses to a row from front to back, breaking them into segments of goat, sheep, Swiss, French, blues, regionals. We find that works really well.”

Dylan advises cracking open whole cheeses where possible, as he’s found they won’t sell unless customers can see what’s inside. They like to halve cheeses (not of the runnier variety though) and stack the two pieces on top of each other with the cut side facing out.

Throughout the day do a front walk of the counter. “Make sure you haven’t missed anything. Some cheeses go mouldy faster than others and it’s just a case of facing the cheeses with a scraper to keep the colour looking really nice, and to ensure the cut face doesn’t look dried out.”

Any cheeses that are prone to dry quickly should remain glass wrapped – but only on the surface to prevent moisture building up around them.

At the end of the day wrap each piece, and inspect them every morning, Dylan adds, saying to only stock the amount of cheese you can reasonably look after. “The more you have, the more there is to sell, and the more there is to care for. Pick a few good cheeses and pay close attention to what you’re doing.”

How to display tasting cheeses

Tastings are a crucial part of the cheese buying process in speciality retail and what differentiates the deli or food hall counter from the multiples.

Laura Billington, of Graze Cheshire, has these tips to share when presenting bites from your counter to the public ...

The golden rule when serving cheese is to always bring it to room temperature. Cold cheese hides its aroma and softens its character. A ripe Brie eaten straight from the fridge will taste bland and feel too firm. But give it time to breathe and it becomes silky, aromatic and utterly irresistible.

Think about contrast. Add something crunchy (crackers or toasted nuts) something sweet (figs, honey or grapes) and something acidic (cornichons or chutney).

Never overcrowd your tasting board with lots of options. Let each cheese have its moment and remember to include something a bit unexpected – a blue, or lesser-known regional cheese to spark curiosity and conversation.

Make your tasting tray feel like a mini cheeseboard, not an afterthought. Use small wooden or slate boards to keep things clean and elevated. Top up the cheese regularly so it never looks tired or overcrowded.

A small garnish – like a sprig of herbs or a few grapes – adds colour and visual appeal, especially when swapped out through the year. In autumn and winter try dried fruits or a ramekin of chutney. In spring and summer go fresh with strawberries, mint, or edible flowers. Some crackers or breadsticks helps complete the picture and invites the customer in.

Placement is everything. Always have tasting trays at the front of the cheese counter, never hidden behind. Add a small sign suggesting pairings or flavour notes. And encourage staff to interact: “Have you tried this one before?” Or “Would you pair this with something sweet or savoury?” These gentle prompts often lead to great conversations – and more often than not a sale.