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Public repositories often lack standardised descriptors that matter for cheese ecology. MetaCheeseDB provides cheese-specific metadata — not just sequencing descriptors. Indeed, for each sample we compiled 42 metadata fields, including both technical descriptors, and food- and process-related variables. We additionally provide a harmonised subset of 18 standardised metadata fields designed for robust cross-study comparisons.

Examples of curated cheese-relevant fields include:

• milk source and animal management (where available)
• thermal treatment (e.g., pasteurisation)
• starter strategy (including backslopping / natural whey culture)
• curd treatment and ripening context
• rind presence and sampled compartment (core vs rind)
• texture class (soft / semi-hard / hard / very hard)
• geographical origin and certification status (PDO/PGI where applicable)

You can find the full metadata table at this link.

Explore the browsing interface

Use the MetaCheeseDB browsing interface to explore individual samples, their source datasets, sequencing accessions, taxonomic profiles and curated metadata without requiring computational tools!

The search box in the upper-right corner allows users to search across the full table. In addition, the filter fields beneath each column header can be used to restrict the table to specific metadata values. For example, typing mozzarella in the filter field under the Subtype column will display only samples matching mozzarella cheese subtypes.

Columns can also be ordered to facilitate exploration. Clicking a column header once sorts the entries in ascending order, whereas clicking it a second time sorts them in descending order. This can be used, for example, to group samples by dataset, accession, country, milk source, starter culture or other curated metadata fields. This can be used to sort categorical fields alphabetically, such as dataset, accession, country, milk source or starter culture, and numerical fields numerically, such as relative abundance values of the species.

The interface is intended to support rapid exploration of the catalogue, including identification of comparable cheese samples, inspection of metadata coverage across studies, and preliminary assessment of the occurrence of taxa of interest.

Contributions

Feedback and contributions are welcome. Please use the repository issue tracker (coming soon!) or the contact details provided on the site.