Beaufort

The Syndicat de Défense du Fromage Beaufort (SDB) is the defence and management organisation (ODG) for the Beaufort PDO (AOP), recognised back in 1968. Based in Albertville, in the Plaine de Conflans business park, it brings together the entire sector of the 'prince of gruyères': 335 dairy farms and 34 production workshops divided between dairy cooperatives, pastoral associations and individual farmhouse producers, across the high-mountain territory of the Beaufortain, Val d'Arly, Tarentaise and Maurienne. The sector accounts for around 1,000 direct jobs across farming, maturing and marketing.

The syndicate ensures compliance with the appellation's specifications — two authorised cow breeds (Tarine and Abondance), a diet based on fodder from the area, production capped at 5,000 kg of milk per cow per year, and a minimum maturing period of five months — and publishes the sector's figures annually: 5,211 tonnes of Beaufort produced in 2024, divided between Beaufort d'hiver, Beaufort d'été and Beaufort Chalet d'Alpage. It is the source for up-to-date information on points of sale, production sites open to visitors, and the calendar of cheese festivals in the Beaufortain.

The Coopérative Fruitière en Val d'Arly Savoie Mont-Blanc presents itself as making and maturing, in its Flumet workshops, PDO (AOP) and PGI (IGP) certified Savoie cheeses since 1969: Reblochon PDO, Beaufort PDO, Raclette and Tomme de Savoie PGI. It also offers specialities — fondue savoyarde, fondant d'Arly, Meule de Savoie, yoghurt, faisselle, butter — as well as other Savoyard products from its terroir: cured meats, meats, vins de Savoie, beers, mountain honeys and jams.

The cooperative operates five shops in Savoie Mont-Blanc, in Chamonix, Megève, Flumet, Cluses and Faverges, and features a museum in Flumet.

On its official website, the co-operative presents itself under its full registered name, Coopérative Laitière de Haute Tarentaise, headquartered in the ZA des Colombières in Bourg-Saint-Maurice. Founded in 1964 in Bourg-Saint-Maurice, it now brings together 52 producers, adding value to their milk by processing it into Beaufort PDO (AOP). It employs 51 staff, collects around 8 million litres of milk a year and makes some 16,000 wheels of Beaufort PDO each year.

The co-operative offers an interactive visitor area dedicated to cheesemaking know-how as well as a restaurant, 'La Table de la Coop', and sells its products in several shops in Savoie (Bourg-Saint-Maurice, La Rosière 1850, Les Arcs 1800, Tignes, Val d'Isère) and in Grenoble.

Fromageries Pochat & Fils presents itself as a family business of fromagers-affineurs founded in 1919 in Haute-Savoie. The company states that it operates several cheese dairies and direct-sales shops, working in collaboration with milk producers and partner farm producers within the Savoyard dairy sector. It matures traditional PDO (AOP) and PGI (IGP) cheeses from Savoie—with Tome des Bauges PDO cited as an example—as well as more recent creations.

Its catalogue of Savoie cheeses notably features Reblochon de Savoie PDO—including a farmhouse version—, Tomme de Savoie PGI, Abondance PDO, Beaufort PDO, Chevrotin PDO, Emmental de Savoie PGI, and Raclette de Savoie PGI, alongside house specialities such as Beaumont de Savoie.

Located in the heart of the Tarentaise valley, the co-operative sees itself as heir to more than sixty years of know-how: its maturing facility was built in Moûtiers just after the Second World War by neighbouring producers of Beaufort d'alpage. Its activity was initially confined to maturing cheeses brought down from the mountain pastures, before a manufacturing co-operative located in Aigueblanche was relocated to Moûtiers in 1964; production expanded year-round from 1978, with an extension of the cheese-making room in 1985 and again in 1990.

Today, the co-operative brings together more than 80 milk producers across around sixty farms located around Moûtiers, and employs around fifty staff — milk collectors, cheesemakers, affineurs and shop assistants. It collects around 8 million litres of milk a year within a 30-kilometre radius and makes approximately 800 tonnes of Beaufort PDO (AOP), representing just over 18,000 wheels each year, with an average daily production of around fifty wheels. It is listed as a producer of Beaufort PDO by the Interprofession des Fromages de Savoie.

A visitor circuit has made it possible since 1987 to discover the cheese-making room and the maturing cellars, complemented since 2005 by a film on local mountain agriculture. The co-operative also operates a retail shop in Moûtiers as well as a network of outlets in Savoie, where it offers its Beaufort alongside other cheeses, wines, charcuterie and Savoie specialities.

Monts & Terroirs presents itself as a cheese company born from the parallel paths of two maturing cooperative unions founded in 1945 — the Cave Coopérative Centrale d'Affinage de Poligny (which became Juramonts Comté in 1970) and the Union des coopératives d'affinage de Franche-Comté. Since 1983, several cheesemaking families have joined it: Reybier in 1983, Entremont in 1988, Grosjean with Juragruyère in 1992, Fromagerie Mercier in Savoie in 2000, Jura Courlaoux and Fromageries du Colombier in 2006, then the Grillot family in 2014. In 2012, the company — previously called Juragruyère — was renamed Monts & Terroirs.

The enterprise describes itself as a dual-shareholding structure, majority-owned by dairy farmers, with the mission of preserving the cheesemaking terroirs of Franche-Comté and Savoie. Its range includes Comté PDO (AOP), traditionally warm-cured for a minimum of 6 to 18 months, Beaufort PDO, Morbier PDO, Emmental Grand Cru and Gruyère PGI (IGP) matured for at least 4 months on spruce boards, as well as two tommes made artisanally in Savoie and the Jura. Its registered office is based in Poligny, in the Jura.