There are plenty of chocolate advent calendars in the world. In 2025, we decided December deserved rather more cheese.
Our Cheese Advent Calendar brought together 24 individually selected artisan British cheeses, each one ready to open, taste and share through the run-up to Christmas.
In November, The Artisan Founder featured the calendar and the story behind George & Joseph.
Why make a cheese advent calendar?
The idea was never simply to replace chocolate with cheese. We wanted the calendar to do what we try to do at the counter every day: encourage discovery.
Twenty-four days gives you permission to be adventurous. Some cheeses might be familiar. Others might be something you would never have chosen for yourself.
That is often how favourites are found.
Championing British makers
The calendar also gave us the opportunity to showcase the breadth of modern British cheesemaking. Britain produces extraordinary hard, soft, blue, washed-rind, goat’s, sheep’s and cow’s milk cheeses, and a format like this lets us tell lots of those stories in one box.
It is fiddly to put together. There is wrapping, portioning, labelling, storage and a great deal of planning involved. But seeing customers share their daily cheeses makes the work worthwhile.
You can read The Artisan Founder’s original feature here.
For this year’s festive range, head to our Christmas cheese collection.
This article was added retrospectively to the G&J Journal archive to record the people, milestones and stories that have shaped George & Joseph.