• Share
• facebook
• twitter
• e-mail
• print
• copy link

At 68, Claude Luisier has become a social networking sensation. It was his son who first got his foot in the door with a goal that was intended to be promotional.

“Initially, it was a commercial move to sell our cheeses better, a means of communication,” the man from Leytron in canton Valais told Swiss public radio, RTS.

But in the face of success, the objective has changed somewhat for the artisan cheesemaker. In fact, he's going to hand over his cheese cellars to his son so that he can devote more time to his new role as an“influencer”.

“Little by little, it has become more and more about communication to safeguard this heritage [...] because maturing cheese is a tradition that is being lost,” he explains.

For the cheesemaker, the battle is above all against industrial cheese,“which is gaining the upper hand just about everywhere”. Luisier admits that it is necessary, but criticises the lack of effort put into taste and texture.

In a number of his videos, he creates matches between industrial cheeses and mature cheeses.

“The case is already closed. The industrial product has no substance, it's not alive... But you have to be careful with industry, because you have to feed people. But I don't think they make too much effort in terms of quality. Sometimes you have to force yourself to eat,” says the cheesemaker.

“If you need dairy products, drink milk rather than eat something so tasteless,” he adds.

Nearly 500,000 subscribers on YouTube, 549,000 on Instagram, and 1.4 million on Tiktok. The success continues to surprise Luisier, not least because the audience is relatively young.

“Maybe they realise that there's something here to safeguard. In any case, there's an interest in the story I tell and the products I promote. Very often, people thank me for teaching them something,” he explains.

But for the cheesemaker, the success of his videos can't always be explained.“I sometimes find it hard to understand [...] a million views for cutting a raclette cheese,” he says.

Perhaps the key to Luisier's success lies in the variety of his videos. Some teach you a technique, something that might seem simple at first glance but require a certain knack, such as how to open a huge Parmesan cheese by cutting it lengthways.

Others, on the other hand, are more theoretical and delve into the history of cheese and its manufacturing secrets, as recently with Mimolette, a pressed uncooked cheese made from cow's milk, which has the particularity of being orange.

By passing on his cellars to his son, the cheesemaker hopes to free up time to be even more present on social networks. In particular, he plans to travel around Europe, always on the lookout for the best cheeses,“a pleasant task, but not necessarily the easiest”, in his own words.

A book is also due to be published by Larousse in October.“I'm very proud of it, because it's going to endure. It will help to safeguard our heritage,” he concludes.

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: swi swissinfo.ch certified by the journalism trust initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at ... .