Why Is Some Cheese Orange or Red? The History Behind Annatto

As the old saying goes, we eat with our eyes. We love the colour of cheese, both on its outside and what it opens up to reveal. In a world of pristine whites and warm yellows, nothing strikes the eye of a deep-hued orange or red cheese, the sign of a well-matured variety, but often the result of a little bit of annatto as well.

Annatto serves as a natural alternative to synthetic food colouring for cheese, but why is it used in the artisan cheese world? What is the history behind it? Grab some cheese and red grapes and find out more in this article.

Annatto is a plant dye derived from the seed of the achiote tree, and has been used to colour cheeses for three centuries. The achiote tree (Bixa orellana, to give its scientific name) is native to tropical regions of the Americas, but has spread across tropical areas of the world since its discovery and world import began.

You can find annatto colouring many foods we eat every day, from cereals to potatoes, cakes to butter, as well as a spice for numerous South and Central American cuisines. But it is most famous in the UK for its use in cheese, as it has given us famous varieties that are orange and red, such as Red Leicester, Gloucester, Shropshire Blue and some Cheddars.

In the UK, annatto was first imported from South America in the 18th century, with reference to its use in English cheesemaking going as far back as 1796.

It was first used as a cheeky business tactic, as a way to colour cheese year-round to give the impression of quality summer cheese. What started as a bait-and-switch turned into a unique feature, particularly in Leicester, where cheeses were coloured an intense red in order to stand out from the more popular cheddars - thus birthing ‘Red Leicester’. Before annatto, Red Leicester was coloured using vegetable rennet, but some of these rennets were poisonous, so when an alternative arrived, it was welcomed with wide-open arms and combined with animal rennet.

Annatto’s use became widespread in the 1840s, and after World War I, it became the only solution for cheese colouring. However, during World War II, it was banned for being an unnecessary import, dooming traditional Red Leicester cheese farms. Thank goodness artisan cheesemakers today have revived the practice of traditional Leicester fromage forging.

Annatto is turned from plant to colouring by grabbing the seeds which have the natural annatto dye, then either grinding the seeds to a powder or paste, or extracting it from the seeds using hot vegetable oil (around 70°C). Annatto’s seed wax contains Bixin and Norbixin, which give an orange and yellow colouring respectively. Depending on how much of each cheesemakers use, they can tweak the colour of a cheese like a painter mixing paints to create the right shade.

It should be noted that cheesemakers are typically not actively involved in the extraction process. Rather, they leave it to the experts and purchase the colouring wholesale, then stir it into the mixture when making the cheese curd, tinting each batch during coagulation. If you wish to know more about the full artisan cheesemaking process, learn from our blog on how cheese is made.

Annatto is a perfectly natural food colouring. Though it may seem strange or inauthentic to some, adding annatto is the same as inviting certain bacteria to change the flavour and texture of cheese - it’s part of the process of creating and maturing.

Sparkenhoe Red Leicester uses annatto to enhance the overall feeling of a well-aged mature cheese, just as its ancestors did, as does Cropwell Shropshire Blue and a host of washed rind cheeses, where it is washed on the outside to change the rind.

We know what annatto was once a trick, and in an age where artisan cheese is more appreciated than ever, so why is annatto still popular amongst cheesemakers? For the same reasons as they did hundreds of years ago - even if it’s not necessarily true, colour gives the warm feeling of good health. It’s embedded in the tradition of British cheesemaking, so why not embrace that? 

Artisans use annatto for simple creative flourishes, too. Shropshire Blue cheese is famous for being an orange blue cheese, delighting the pupils of cheese lovers globally - its secret is annatto in the curd. It also imparts some of its essence into the flavour of cheeses - there’s an earthy, peppery nutmeg sensation that is folded into the taste of Cropwell or Sparkenhoe.

Finally, there’s no better alternative to be found in nature, and it’s one of the few traditions that both artisan and industrial supermarket cheese have in common. And perhaps that’s where the beauty lies – in this one small, stubborn tradition that bridges the churns of farmhouse dairies with the conveyor belts of mass production. Annatto, in its humble way, reminds us that cheese is not just chemistry, but craft - built on labour, instinct, and generations of hands that knew what good food ought to feel like. If that isn’t worth preserving, I don’t know what is.