One of the star products of this New Year’s Eve will be cheese, whether in raclette or on a platter. This period is busy for the cheesemakers who had to work a good part of last night to get everything ready.
It’s an easy, tasty dish that delights guests: raclette will be on the menu of many Belgians this Tuesday evening. It’s almost the ideal dish, which doesn’t require too much work from the hosts and which pleases.
This year again, orders from cheesemakers are particularly numerous. This is the case at Jean-Paul Lekeu, based in Huy. He opened his cheese factory 9 years ago. This end-of-year period is one of the busiest for him.
The orders come one after the other at a frantic pace. So much so that on the evening of December 30, Jean-Paul Lekeu spent part of the night preparing cheese platters for his customers who will come to pick them up this Tuesday. Several dozen orders and hundreds of cheeses to carefully package. It sells Belgian, French, Swiss, Italian, English and even Spanish cheeses.
“There really is a typical end-of-year holiday clientele, who treat themselves once a year to a cheese platter or a pre-dessert. Cheese remains a sure bet for end-of-year meals “It remains a must.” indicates Jean-Paul Lekeu. “At Christmas, it’s really for the pre-dessert that customers come to buy cheese. For the New Year, there are a lot of raclettes, a lot of fondues. More convivial things. Meals where people don’t have much to do, to enjoy their guests.”
Cheese success in Belgium: here are the figures
In 2023, Belgium produced around 122,900 tonnes of cheese, including 108,000 tonnes of natural cheese. In Wallonia, we produce between 650 and 700 different cheeses. According to certain APAQ-W statistics, we would be around a consumption of 14 kilos of cheese per year per person. The Walloon spends on average €153 per year per person on purchasing cheese.
Hard or semi-hard cheeses represent 60% of Belgian household consumption. Walloons and Brussels residents are more fond of cheese than the Flemish. The Walloon consumes on average 3 kilos more than the Flemish.
raclette cheese new year’s eve meal
