No, not all cheese sold in the United States is pasteurized. While the majority of cheese on American grocery store shelves is made from pasteurized milk, federal law does allow cheese made from raw (unpasteurized) milk to be sold, provided it has been aged for at least 60 days. This single rule shapes the entire landscape of what you’ll find in stores and what gets imported from abroad.
The 60-Day Aging Rule
The key federal regulation is straightforward: cheese made from raw milk must be aged for a minimum of 60 days at a temperature no lower than 35°F before it can be sold in the United States. This applies to both domestically produced and imported cheeses. The logic behind the rule is that the combination of time, salt, acidity, and low moisture during aging creates conditions hostile to dangerous bacteria like Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli.
This means many classic European and American artisanal cheeses, including aged cheddar, Gruyère, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Comté, and aged Gouda, can legally be made from raw milk and sold throughout the country. These are typically hard or semi-hard cheeses that naturally require months or even years of aging.
What the rule effectively bans is soft, fresh cheese made from raw milk. Cheeses like brie, camembert, queso fresco, fresh mozzarella, and ricotta don’t undergo a long aging process, so if they’re sold in the U.S., they must be made from pasteurized milk.
Why Soft Cheese Carries More Risk
Soft cheeses have high moisture content and relatively low acidity, which are exactly the conditions that allow bacteria like Listeria monocytogenes to survive and multiply. Hard, aged cheeses are drier and more acidic, making them far less hospitable to pathogens. The aging process also allows beneficial bacteria and enzymes to outcompete harmful organisms over time.
The CDC specifically flags queso fresco-style cheeses as a concern. These fresh, soft cheeses skip the extended aging that helps kill harmful bacteria in other varieties. Outbreaks linked to unpasteurized soft cheese have involved Salmonella, E. coli O157:H7, and Listeria, sometimes across multiple states. One multi-state Listeria outbreak tied to soft raw-milk cheese caused 8 illnesses and 2 deaths. Even pasteurized soft cheeses aren’t immune to contamination if bacteria are introduced after production, though the risk is lower.
What Most Americans Actually Eat
The vast majority of cheese consumed in the U.S. is pasteurized. All processed cheese products, including American cheese, cheese spreads, and cheese blends, are pasteurized by definition under federal standards. The regulations require these products to be heated to at least 150°F for no less than 30 seconds during manufacturing, and the word “pasteurized” must appear in the product name.
Most mass-market block and shredded cheeses from major brands, including common cheddar, mozzarella, Monterey Jack, and Swiss, are also made from pasteurized milk. If you’re buying cheese at a typical supermarket, you’re almost certainly buying pasteurized cheese unless you specifically seek out artisanal or imported varieties labeled otherwise.
How to Tell What You’re Buying
Federal labeling rules require pasteurized process cheeses to include “pasteurized” in their name. For other cheeses, the ingredient list is your best guide. Look at the first ingredient: it will typically say either “pasteurized milk” or “milk.” If it says just “milk” without the word “pasteurized,” the cheese may be made from raw milk. Some raw-milk cheeses will explicitly state “made from raw milk” or “unpasteurized” on the label, particularly artisanal and imported varieties that treat this as a selling point.
Imported cheeses sometimes complicate things. A traditional French Comté or Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano sold in the U.S. is made from raw milk but meets the 60-day aging requirement. Meanwhile, an imported brie you find at the store will be a pasteurized-milk version, because the soft, young original wouldn’t be legal to sell here.
State Laws Add Another Layer
Federal rules govern interstate commerce and imports, but individual states can set their own policies for cheese produced and sold within their borders. Some states permit the sale of raw-milk cheese that hasn’t met the 60-day aging requirement through direct farm sales or farmers’ markets, while others are more restrictive. This means availability of young raw-milk cheese varies significantly depending on where you live, though it remains a niche market.
Raw Cheese and Flavor Differences
Cheesemakers who work with raw milk argue that pasteurization strips away native enzymes and beneficial microorganisms that contribute to more complex flavors. Research supports this to a degree. Studies comparing raw and pasteurized versions of the same cheese have found that raw-milk cheeses develop more intense flavor compounds during aging, partly because the natural enzymes that survive in unpasteurized milk break down fats and proteins more actively. Raw-milk cheeses tend to be more acidic and show higher levels of fat breakdown, both of which contribute to stronger, more varied taste profiles.
The tradeoff is microbial. Raw-milk cheeses start with significantly higher bacterial counts. While aging reduces these populations substantially, studies have found that some concerning bacteria, including coliforms and E. coli, can persist in raw-milk cheese even after 60 days of ripening. This is why the 60-day rule, while helpful, isn’t considered a perfect guarantee of safety, and why some food safety experts have periodically called for stricter regulations.
Who Should Be Extra Cautious
Pregnant women, young children, older adults, and anyone with a weakened immune system face higher risk from Listeria and other pathogens that can survive in raw-milk cheese. For these groups, sticking with cheeses clearly labeled as pasteurized, particularly when it comes to soft varieties, is the safer choice. Heating any soft cheese to 165°F before eating it also kills Listeria and other harmful bacteria, regardless of whether the cheese was originally made from raw or pasteurized milk.