Société

Société is a French Roquefort brand registered in 1863 by a company of cave owners in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon (Aveyron department). Today the brand belongs to the Lactalis group, and its cheeses still ripen in the natural caves of the Combalou mountain.

Until 1851 Roquefort was made and sold by independent cave owners. That year seven of them pooled their assets and founded the Société Civile de Roquefort. In 1863 the director Etienne Coupiac registered the word “SOCIETE” in an oval at the commercial court of Saint-Affrique; in 1959 the oval turned green. In the 1990s the Société des Caves de Roquefort joined Lactalis, the family dairy company from Laval that is the world's largest maker of dairy products.

Roquefort was the first cheese protected by an appellation of origin, under the French law of 26 July 1925, and in 1996 it was registered in the EU as a PDO. It is a blue cheese made from raw sheep's milk. The Combalou caves were formed by the collapse of the mountain, and natural fissures called “fleurines” ventilate them; some Société caves have been open to visitors since 1957.

The brand has several Roquefort AOP ranges: Société 1863 (including the Cave Saveur pack created in 2000), the organic Société Bio, the milder Société Douceur and single-cave Roqueforts — Cave des Templiers, Caves Baragnaudes and Caves Abeille. It also sells the whipped Société Le Fouetté, Société Crème and crispy palets. Société Roquefort goes well with pears, walnuts and sweet wines.