Why does mass-produced cheddar cheese vary from package to package? My question is about commercially mass-produced cheddar cheese sold in vacuum-sealed plastic packaging. The particular variety is a medium-age marble. I find that sometimes, when a package is freshly opened, the cheese has a firm almost crumbly consistency which cuts cleanly and easily with a dinner knife (which I prefer), and when I open a different package of the identically labeled product, it may be softer and somewhat gooey. The taste is also a bit different. I find that the cheese does not noticeably &quot;age&quot; after opening over a couple of weeks in the refrigerator, so it doesn't seem as though it is a &quot;shelf life&quot; issue with the sealed product. For a mass-produced product, I would have expected a consistent product in every package.
What would cause the variation? Would there be batch-to-batch variations before packaging due to manufacturing? Is it caused by differences in handling after packaging?
Depends on how large the production is. You would expect extremely large scale production to be tightly controlled, but something that is quite large might just be made from a series of large batches. Large batches, particularly in dairy production, can allow very high levels of variance between the beginning and end of a batch.
Your issue sounds like a quality control problem though. Contact the manufacturer.