Best cheese subscriptions and delivery boxes 2023

Best cheese subscriptions and clubs at a glance

• Best cheese subscription for wow factor: Paxton & Whitfield, from £120 for 3 months
• Best cheese delivery for supporting food banks: The Cheese Collective, £33 a month
• Best for discovering new European cheeses: Provisions Cheese Canteen, £32 a month
• Best for cheese for rival your favourite restaurant: Fen Farm Dairy Membership Club, £45 quarterly
• Best cheese subscription for people who like surprises: Fine Cheese Company, £36 a box
• Best cheese box for the adventurous: Rennet & Rind, £35 a month

Best cheese subscriptions 2023

Paxton & Whitfield’s Cheese Club

• Available from Paxton & Whitfield, from £120 for 3 months

Best cheese delivery for dinner party 'wow factor'

Paxton & Whitfield, the UK’s oldest cheesemonger, has a superb range of expertly curated artisan cheese, fine foods, wines and stylish cheese homewares. It has three shops; its flagship shop on Jermyn Street in Piccadilly, one on Chelsea Green in Chelsea and another in the centre of Bath. It also delivers items all over the UK. The company was founded in 1797, and today, sells its products to lovers of fine cheese, hotels and restaurants.

As a member of the Cheese Club, you'll receive four carefully selected cheeses in peak condition, chosen for the season. The selection is sent by overnight courier leaving on the second Wednesday of each month to arrive on the Thursday.

What’s in the Paxton & Whitfield cheese box:

Tickelmore Goat (250g): a goat's milk cheese made on the Sharpham Estate that overlooks the River Totnes in South Devon. Made by hand using traditional methods, it's matured for at least two months. It has a rich, clean flavour with fresh citrus notes.

Perl Las (250g): Perl Las, which means ‘Blue Pearl’, is a blue cheese made from cow's milk by Carwyn Adams of Caws Cenarth on his family farm near Cardigan in the heart of West Wales. It has deep savoury notes, balanced with the piquancy of the blue.

Herve Vieux Moulin (200g): a washed rind, raw cow’s milk traditional cheese perfect for anyone who loves an Epoisses and Old Groendal. It has an umami flavour with a slight sweet finish and a rich and silky texture. It's the only Belgian cheese with an AOP (Appellation d'origine protégée/Protected designation of origin).

Moreton (250g): a new Tomme-style cheese created by David Jowett of King Stone Dairy in Chedworth. Luxurious, buttery texture cut through with a clean, spritzy acidity. Made from organic cow's milk.

Information included: detailed tasting notes on each of the cheeses, but members of the cheese club can request that fact sheets are emailed to them, to save paper.

Order now:
Paxton & Whitfield (Bronze subscription £120 for three months; Silver £225 for six months; Gold £420 for a year)

The Cheese Collective – The Usual Box

• Available from The Cheese Collective, £33 a month

Best cheese delivery for supporting food banks

The Cheese Collective is partnered with The Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest network of food banks, and for every cheese box purchased, the company will donate a meal to a local food bank. The owners work with a range of award-winning British artisan cheese makers, including Alsop & Walker, High Weald Dairy and Appleby Creamery.

What was in our Cheese Collective The Usual box:

Each box contains a mix of hard, semi-hard, soft and blue cheeses, although customers can customise their box based on their personal preferences, with options for no blue cheese, no goat’s cheese, or vegetarian only. Our box contained the following (each cheese weighed approx. 150-180g)

Sussex camembert: British take on the French classic from Alsop & Walker in Sussex. Creamy in texture with an earthy, mushroomy flavour.
Beauvale: melt-in-the-mouth, lusciously creamy soft blue cheese from the Cropwell Bishop Creamery in Nottingham. A great soft cheese for Stilton fans.
Organic St Giles: semi-soft, buttery-textured cheese from High Weald Dairy in Sussex. Similar in style to French Port Salut with an edible orange rind. Vegetarian.
Duckett’s Caerphilly: a fresh, clean, crumbly cheese made by the Westcombe Dairy in Somerset. It has an earthy, yogurty flavour.
Connage Dunlop: traditional cloth-bound cheese from the Connage Highland Dairy in Inverness, based on a recipe dating back to 1600s. It has a moist, creamy texture and a nutty taste. Vegetarian.

Information included: each cheese comes with a collectable card, describing the cheese, the cheesemaker, its history, flavour profile and awards.

Order now:
The Cheese Collective (£33 a month, free next weekday delivery)

Provisions Cheese Canteen

• Available from Provisions, from £32 per month

Best for discovering fabulous European cheeses

North London-based Provisions imports cheese and wine from small, natural and organic producers, mainly in France and Italy, but also from across Europe. They work with organic/biodynamic and natural winemakers, raw milk cheesemakers and other artisan producers.

The Cheese Canteen subscription box includes five cheeses, weighing a total of 1kg. You can choose the number of months you wish to sign up for: a one-off box costs £32, reducing in price to £28 for a 12 month subscription. You can pause or change your subscription at any time. And you can state your special requirements, such as no goat's cheese or blue cheese.

What was in our Provisions box:

Every month is different, but the box we reviewed was themed Alpine cheese, chosen from across the mountains of Switzerland, France and Italy.

The five cheeses were Morbier from the French Jura, the specialty Monlesi from the Swiss Jura, Ossau Iraty from the French Pyrenees, and Taleggio and Blu Di Nicoletta from the Italian Alps. A stunning – and surprising – selection of cheeses, some of which were new to us.

Information included: Each box comes with a leaflet describing each cheese, its history and flavour profile, plus information about how to store and keep your cheese in tip-top condition.

Order now:
Provisions, from £32 per month

Fen Farm Dairy Cheese Club

• Available from Fen Farm Dairy (£45 for a subscription arriving every three months, free delivery)

Best for cheese to rival your favourite restaurant

Baron Bigod is revered by chefs so here’s your chance to find out what the fuss is about. Jonny and Dulcie Crickmore are the third generation of farmers at Fen Farm in Suffolk. They and their team make raw milk Baron Bigod cheese and butter, with milk from their herd of Montbeliarde cows which graze the marshlands of the Waveney River Valley.

The Fen Farm Dairy Cheese Club arrives quarterly, always with a signature Baron Bigod, plus a changing selection of four guest cheeses for a total minimum of 1kg cheese.

What's in the Fen Farm Dairy box:

Baron Bigod (250g): a creamy, white bloomy-rind handmade cheese with grassy and herby flavours, influenced by the diet of the cows grazing land of Stow Fen.
St Jude (95g): a small soft raw cow’s milk cheese with a rich buttery, savoury flavour. The texture is luxuriously light, fluffy and mousse-like. The cheese intentionally has a very thin mould rind.
Stichelton (270g): creamy and nutty with a pleasing blue tang that is sweet and spicy, this unpasteurised cheese is based on a stilton recipe but cannot be called stilton because it’s made with raw milk.
Lincolnshire poacher (230g): a cross between a traditional West Country cheddar and a continental alpine cheese such as comte, with some small technical differences that give the cheese its unique texture and flavour. It has long, sweet pineapple flavour, but is also rich and savoury.

Information included: extensive tasting notes detailing the cheesemaker, history, process, characteristics and flavour profile of each cheese.

Order now:
Fen Farm Dairy (£45 for a subscription arriving every three months, free delivery)

Fine Cheese Company Cheese Subscription

• Available from Fine Cheese Company (from £36 a box)

Best cheese subscription for people who like surprises

This subscription is ideal for cheese lovers who like to expect the unexpected. Every month you’ll receive a different selection of four cheeses, plus crackers, along with tasting notes.

The Fine Cheese Co only offers ‘artisan’ cheeses, some of which may only be bought through them. By ‘artisan’ they mean cheeses made predominantly by small producers using traditional methods, and often making only one cheese and with the milk from their own herd. The company has direct relationships with the cheese-makers (and affineurs), specifying and agreeing on age, condition and flavour profile.

What’s in The Fine Cheese Co box:

Stichelton (270g): creamy and nutty with a pleasing blue tang that is sweet and spicy, this unpasteurised cheese is based on a stilton recipe.
Golden Cross (225g): a sweet, soft and delicately ‘goaty’ and grassy cheese with an ice-cream like texture. The young cheese is rolled in ash, and then matured for a couple of weeks to allow the growth of a natural rind and the development of a more complex flavour. Vegetarian.
Coolea (400g): a gouda-style hard cheese from Ireland with a sweet, honey and toffee flavour that has been likened to butterscotch.
Toast for cheese: Apricots, pistachios and sunflower seeds: thin, light and crisp toast (baked twice like biscotti) and studded with fruits, nuts and seeds.

Information included: A beautifully designed pamphlet with the stories of the cheesemakers and flavour profiles of the cheeses.

Order now:
Fine Cheese Company (from £36 a box, free delivery)

Rennet & Rind Mystery cheese box

• Available from Rennet & Rind (£35 a month)

Best cheese box for the adventurous

This box contains some wonderful British classics that you may not have come across before. A mystery box consists of five unique specialist artisan cheeses, aged in the Rennet & Rind maturation room. Enjoy on your own or connect over live video and share your unique cheeseboard experience. World Cheese Awards judge Perry James Wakeman hand-selects each cheese. Many of the products are locally sourced from small independent producers in the Cambridge region to ensure food miles are minimised and local producers and their employees can benefit from their mutual relationship.

What's in the Mystery Cheese box:

Montgomery cheddar (210g): made with unpasteurised milk from Friesian cows on the Montgomery family's 500-year old farm, Montgomery's mature cheddar is aged for 12 months wrapped in Muslin cloth on wooden shelves.
Sussex brie (260g: made by Arthur Alsop and Nic Walker in Sussex, this brie is unctuous and creamy with grassy notes and hints of mushroom. Vegetarian.
Cornish yarg (270g): modern, farmhouse, vegetarian, hard cheese. The natural rind is covered in fresh nettles. Cornish Yarg is a hand-made cheese produced from a traditional 17th Century recipe. Moist but crumbly, it is not unlike caerphilly. Vegetarian.
Sparkenhoe Shropshire blue (230g): lightly laced with blue, this creamy pale orange cheese is made with unpasteurised milk and coloured with annato, showing off the beautiful lacy blue veins.
Berkswell (230g): sweet and nutty with hints of caramel, Berkswell is a hard sheep’s cheese, made in the West Midlands, reminiscent of Spanish manchego or Italian pecorino, with a distinctive shape, like a flattened rugby ball, created by the way it naturally drains in a colander.
1 box wheat wafers

Information included: a sheet of tasting notes, covering the origin, style, cheesemaker and flavour profiles for each cheese, plus advice about storing, tasting and food pairing.

Order now:
Rennet & Rind (£35 a month)

Related reviews

The best meat delivery boxes tried and tested
The best craft beer subscriptions
The best chocolate subscriptions and clubs
The best foodie gift hampers
The best veg box subscriptions
The best recipe subscription boxes
The best letterbox gifts to order online
The best fondue sets to buy for cheese and chocolate
Best wine glasses
Best champagne glasses
Best whiskey glasses
The best pinot grigio

This page was last updated in December 2023. If you have any questions, suggestions for future reviews or spot anything that has changed in price or availability, please get in touch at goodfoodwebsite@immediate.co.uk.