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Britain is home to some of the world's most iconic cheeses: Cheddar, Stilton and Wensleydale to name just a few. Chances are if you open a fridge in the UK, it will have some sort of cheese in there - in fact, research shows that Brits spend over £3.18 billion* a year on the dairy product alone! It's clear we are a nation that can't get enough of it.
As we love it so much, we were keen to find out which type of cheese reigns supreme in the UK.
Asking 3,630 of you what your all-time favourite cheese is, we can reveal that Britain's most loved cheese actually hails from Cyprus, with over a fifth (21%) voting halloumi as their number one.
Unsurprisingly, British-born Cheddar closely follows the Cypriot cheese, with one in five votes (19%), whereas vegan/free-from cheese squeezes into the top ten with 3% of votes.
Find out if your favourite makes the list...
The UK's favourite cheeses as voted for by Brits are:
- Halloumi (21%)
- Cheddar (19%)
- Mozzarella (10%)
- Stilton (9%)
- Camembert (8%)
- Goats cheese (7%)
- Brie (5%)
- Feta (5%)
- Vegan/free-from cheese (3%)
- Red Leicester (1%)
- Parmesan (0.8%)
- Double Gloucester (0.6%)
- Edam (0.5%)
- Stinking Bishop (0.2%)
- Wensleydale (0.1%)
Wikimedia Commons / Rainer Zenz / CC BY-SA
As well as finding out your favourite type, we also discovered that over half (53%) of Brits consume a cheese-based product daily. In addition, one in five (19%) of you told us that cheese is your favourite food and a staggering quarter (26%) admitted that you'd rather give up sex than cheese.
The survey clearly highlights all types of cheeses seem to be loved in the UK, so we wanted to discover just how important the fridge staple is to you. From this we found that almost two thirds (64%) of Brits would continue to eat cheese even if they had an intolerance and half (50%) prefer cheese over confectionery.
Lastly, we were intrigued to discover how you consume your favourite fromage - nearly half (46%) confirmed you mostly eat cheese with pasta, a quarter (27%) said in a sandwich or with bread is your favourite accompaniment and a sixth (16%) stated you like to eat it on its own. Other answers given included on crackers, on top of pizza and with a salad.
Cas Paton, founder and CEO of OnBuy, said,
"We're a nation of cheese lovers and for many of us, cheese is an everyday staple in our diets. We were fascinated to discover just how much Brits love the dairy product and what type of cheese is the nation's favourite in particular.
"We weren't surprised to see halloumi take the top spot - restaurant chains like Nandos offering it as a side dish has really boosted its popularity in the UK. Some may be shocked to see that British staples like Cheddar and Wensleydale were beaten by foreign exports, but I think it just reflects how diverse our culture and cuisine is now. It was interesting however, to discover that a quarter of the public would rather give up sex then the dairy product - it certainly confirms that British people love their cheese!"
