Tomme des Pyrénées

Fromagerie Matocq describes itself as perpetuating, since 1950, in the footsteps of Jean and then Christian Matocq, the savoir-faire handed down by its shepherds. Its team, it says, mostly composed of Béarnais from farming backgrounds, continues the recipes, values and gestures passed on by its elders. Faced with the seasonality of ewe's milk production, it claims to have combined tradition and modernity to offer cheeses all year round.

The business claims deep roots in its terroir, with Ossau-Iraty as the flagship of its range. It relies on three local breeds — Basco-Béarnaise, Manech tête noire and Manech tête rousse —, presented as the guardians of its traditions. It notes that maturing begins on the farm and finishes in its hâloirs, to reach what it describes as perfect ripeness.

It states that its shepherds, in summer mountain pastures as in the valley, continue to make cheeses using traditional methods.

Born in the 1970s and 1980s from the merger of farmhouse cheese cooperatives from the Ossau valley and the Aspe valley, this cooperative now brings together 30 farming families from Béarn and the Basque Country (the Ossau, Aspe, Barétous and Soule valleys), who delegate the maturing and marketing of their farmhouse cheeses to it. It matures and markets around 250 tonnes of cheese a year, including Ossau-Iraty PDO (AOP), achieved by farmhouse producers as early as the beginning of the 1980s.

Farmhouse Ossau-Iraty PDO alone accounts for half of its production. The cooperative also matures Tomme des Pyrénées PGI (IGP), as well as farmhouse goat's tommes and mixed cow-ewe or goat-ewe tommes, presented as 100% raw milk.

Its farmhouse range was recognised at the Concours Général Agricole 2026, where it won a medal for its farmhouse Ossau-Iraty PDO.

Onetik describes itself as a cheese dairy specialising in Basque Country cheeses, based in Macaye. It states that it collects milk directly from its producers, brought together notably through Basquilait, Béarnlait and Lait des Pyrénées, as part of what it describes as a sustainable partnership designed to preserve jobs in local production areas. On site, it offers tastings at the workshop alongside a local grocery shop, as well as farm visits on Thursdays in July and August, by reservation.

Founded in 2014 from the desire of a group of farmers to oversee the processing of their milk right through to marketing, the cheese dairy of Les Aldudes now bears the name Etxaldia and brings together 35 sheep and dairy cow farmers within the AEK (Aldudeko Esne Kooperatiba) cooperative, in the Basque Aldudes valley. It produces exclusively small-batch cheeses — Ossau-Iraty, cow's, ewe's or mixed-milk tomme, extra-fine churned butter and local UHT milk.

Its dairy Ossau-Iraty PDO (AOP) was awarded a bronze medal at the 2026 Concours Général Agricole.

In the hamlet of Losque, in the commune of Castelnau-Durban in Ariège, GAEC La Ferme du Haut Cazal rears goats and turns their milk into farmhouse cheeses. Registered in 2020 and run by Laurent Caquot and Caroline Sepe, the farm manages its herd according to organic farming principles.

The farm came to prominence in June 2024 by winning the gold medal at the Concours national de la Tomme des Pyrénées au lait cru in Eyne for its farmhouse goat's milk Tomme des Pyrénées PGI (IGP) — one of the very first goat's tommes honoured in this category, which was only opened to raw milk and goat's milk following the expansion of the PGI specifications in 2020, after twenty years of lobbying by the Association des Fromagers Pyrénéens.