Canary Islands Cheeses Win Fresh International Recognition at Cincho Awards

Five Canary Islands cheeses have earned fresh international recognition at the 2026 Cincho Cheese Awards, giving food-loving visitors another reason to look beyond the beach and into the islands' farming landscapes, markets, restaurants and rural routes.

The awards, announced on 11 June 2026 after the final phase of the competition in Valladolid from 2 to 4 June, brought four Gold Cincho awards and one Silver Cincho award to producers from Gran Canaria, La Palma and Fuerteventura. For the Canary Islands, the result is more than a specialist food-industry prize. It is a useful tourism signal at a time when the archipelago is trying to strengthen higher-value, more locally rooted holiday experiences around gastronomy, rural culture and island identity.

The winning cheeses were Arquegran Agüimes Semicurado, produced by Arquegran Agüimes in Gran Canaria; Era del Cardón Curado, produced by Luis Martel Perdomo in Gran Canaria; Granja Las Cuevas Oveja Viejo Pimentón and Granja Las Cuevas Mezcla Viejo Pimentón, both produced by Félix Alberto Gil Rodríguez in La Palma; and Maxorata Curado con Pimentón, produced by Grupo Ganaderos de Fuerteventura. The first four received Gold awards in their categories, while Maxorata received Silver.

The scale of the competition gives the result weight. The 2026 edition received 1,300 cheese samples from 18 countries, with a jury awarding 117 prizes in total. Those awards were split between 67 Gold Cinchos and 50 Silver Cinchos. The tasting panel included 69 experts from Spain and other countries, and the competition is now in its twelfth national edition and sixth international edition.

Quick Facts

Which Canary Islands Cheeses Won

The Gran Canaria winners show the range of the island's cheese identity. Arquegran Agüimes Semicurado received a Gold Cincho in the cow's milk, enzymatic coagulation category. Agüimes, in the southeast of Gran Canaria, is already known by many visitors for its historic centre, traditional architecture and inland scenery. A cheese award connected with the municipality adds another layer to its appeal for travellers who want a day away from the resorts of the south or the capital city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria.

Era del Cardón Curado, produced by Luis Martel Perdomo, also won Gold, this time in the raw goat's milk category. Goat cheese is central to the food culture of the Canary Islands, and the recognition is a reminder that some of the archipelago's most distinctive holiday memories are found in simple local products: a plate of cheese with mojo, a market tasting, a rural restaurant starter or a conversation with a producer at a village event.

La Palma's two Gold awards went to Granja Las Cuevas Oveja Viejo Pimentón and Granja Las Cuevas Mezcla Viejo Pimentón, both produced by Félix Alberto Gil Rodríguez. The first was recognised in the old raw sheep's milk category, while the second won in the old mixed-milk category. Both include pimentón, a paprika element that gives the awards a strong flavour story as well as a technical cheese-making one.

Fuerteventura's award came through Maxorata Curado con Pimentón, from Grupo Ganaderos de Fuerteventura, which received a Silver Cincho in the pasteurised goat's milk category. Fuerteventura is already strongly associated with cheese in the minds of many repeat visitors, particularly through its goat-farming tradition and its inland agricultural identity. The new recognition adds a fresh talking point for travellers who know the island mainly for beaches, dunes, windsurfing, kitesurfing and open volcanic landscapes.

Why This Is A Travel Story

Cheese awards may sound like a niche food-industry item, but in the Canary Islands they are closely connected with the kind of tourism the destination increasingly wants to build: more local, more varied and more resistant to the idea that a Canary Islands holiday is only sun, sand and a hotel pool.

Food is one of the easiest ways for visitors to understand the differences between islands. Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote, La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro share a broad Canarian identity, but their landscapes, agricultural traditions and visitor rhythms are not identical. Cheese helps translate those differences onto the table. The taste of a cured goat cheese from a dry island, a paprika-rubbed cheese from La Palma, or a semi-cured cheese linked with Gran Canaria does not need a long explanation to feel specific.

That matters for travel planning because many visitors now want holidays with a stronger sense of place. They may still choose a resort, beach apartment or fly-and-flop week, but they also look for local restaurants, food markets, farm shops, wine routes, guided tastings, inland villages and short excursions that make a trip feel less interchangeable. A recognised local cheese can become a small but powerful reason to leave the sunbed for an afternoon.

For tourism businesses, the awards create content that can be used responsibly. Hotels can highlight local cheese on breakfast buffets or tasting menus. Restaurants can explain where a cheese comes from rather than listing it generically. Rural guides can connect cheese with landscapes, water scarcity, goat herding, island breeds and family production. Shops can help visitors understand what is local, what is seasonal and what is practical to take home. None of that requires turning farms into theme parks. The strongest food tourism often comes from respecting the product and making it easier for visitors to recognise its value.

Gran Canaria: Cheese Adds Depth To Inland Excursions

Gran Canaria is often sold through two very different tourism images: the beaches and resorts of the south, and the urban appeal of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Both are important, but the island's inland municipalities are essential to a richer travel experience. Agüimes, the municipality connected with one of the winning cheeses, is a good example of how food can strengthen an excursion that already has cultural and architectural interest.

For visitors staying in Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés, Meloneras, Puerto Rico or Las Palmas, inland food stops can turn a simple sightseeing day into something more memorable. A village lunch, a small market purchase or a cheese board featuring local products helps connect the coast with the countryside. It also spreads visitor spending beyond the most obvious resort strips.

The Gold award for Arquegran Agüimes Semicurado gives Gran Canaria another story to tell around the southeast and inland routes. The Gold for Era del Cardón Curado strengthens the island's broader cheese credentials, especially in the raw goat's milk category. For travellers, the practical message is not that they need to build an entire holiday around cheese. It is that Gran Canaria rewards curiosity. A beach holiday can easily include a morning in a historic town, a countryside drive, a local-food lunch or a market visit.

Gran Canaria's tourism strategy has increasingly had to balance volume with quality of experience. Cheese awards do not solve housing pressure, traffic, resort maturity or labour shortages. But they do support a more diverse visitor economy, where value is created not only by hotel beds but also by producers, restaurants, shops and rural communities.

La Palma: Recognition For A Slower Food Tourism Island

La Palma's two Gold awards are especially useful from a destination perspective because the island is well suited to slower, more sensory travel. Visitors often come for walking, stargazing, volcanic landscapes, green valleys, viewpoints, small towns and a quieter pace than the largest resort islands. Food fits naturally into that pattern.

Granja Las Cuevas Oveja Viejo Pimentón and Granja Las Cuevas Mezcla Viejo Pimentón give La Palma a fresh food tourism hook at a time when the island continues to rebuild and reposition parts of its visitor economy after recent years of disruption. Awards alone do not create demand, but they help provide credible proof that local production has quality, depth and exportable reputation.

For visitors, La Palma is not usually a destination of mass resort abundance. Its appeal is more intimate. A good La Palma holiday often involves moving through landscapes slowly: a drive across changing vegetation zones, a walk through a laurel forest, a stop in Santa Cruz de La Palma, a sunset viewpoint, a small restaurant, a tasting of local wine or a simple plate built around island produce. Award-winning cheese belongs naturally in that kind of itinerary.

The pimentón element in both La Palma winners is also useful for storytelling because it is easy for visitors to understand. A paprika-rubbed or paprika-influenced cheese has visual and flavour identity. It can stand out on a menu, in a shop display or during a tasting. That kind of recognisable detail helps food tourism work in practice, especially for international visitors who may not know the technical categories of Spanish cheese-making.

Fuerteventura: More Than Beaches And Wind

Fuerteventura's Silver Cincho for Maxorata Curado con Pimentón reinforces one of the island's strongest non-beach identities. Fuerteventura is famous for long sandy beaches, Corralejo's dunes, Jandía, El Cotillo, wind sports and wide open landscapes. But its cheese culture is one of the clearest ways to understand the island beyond the coast.

Visitors who only see Fuerteventura from a resort balcony miss the relationship between the island's dry terrain, goat farming, rural settlements and local food. Cheese gives that relationship an accessible form. It can be tasted in restaurants, bought in shops and linked to inland villages or food events. For repeat visitors, it is often part of the reason Fuerteventura feels different from Tenerife or Gran Canaria, even when the holiday format looks similar on paper.

The Maxorata award is also useful because Fuerteventura's tourism economy benefits from experiences that encourage visitors to explore beyond beach zones. That does not mean every visitor needs a full rural itinerary. It can be as simple as choosing a local cheese plate, visiting a market, asking a restaurant what island products it uses or adding a short inland stop to a beach day.

What Travellers Can Take From The Awards

For visitors planning a Canary Islands holiday in 2026, the awards are not a reason to change flights, alter accommodation or avoid any destination. They are a reason to pay more attention to local food when choosing where to eat and what to bring back from a trip.

In practical terms, travellers can use the news in several ways. In Gran Canaria, look for local cheese when visiting Agüimes, inland villages, food markets or restaurants that focus on Canarian produce. In La Palma, treat cheese as part of the island's slower travel rhythm, alongside wine, walking, heritage streets and viewpoints. In Fuerteventura, use cheese as a bridge between the beach holiday and the island's inland identity.

Visitors should also remember that award-winning products may not be available everywhere at all times. Small producers can have limited supply, and restaurant menus change. The best approach is to ask locally, check shop labels, visit recognised food markets where practical and be open to similar island cheeses even when the exact award-winning product is not on the shelf. Food tourism works best when it supports the broader ecosystem, not just one name.

Travellers taking cheese home should also check transport and customs rules for their destination, especially when travelling outside the European Union. Within Spain and much of the EU, packaged food products are generally easier to manage, but rules can vary depending on the product, packaging and destination country. When in doubt, buy from a professional retailer and ask for advice before packing food in luggage.

A Stronger Culinary Identity For The Canary Islands

The Cincho Cheese Awards result fits a wider pattern in Canary Islands tourism. The archipelago is trying to communicate more than climate. Sunshine remains the foundation of demand, particularly in winter, but the most resilient destinations are those that give visitors reasons to care about place, not only weather.

Gastronomy helps do that. Cheese connects tourism with farming, landscape, animal breeds, family knowledge, village economies and island traditions. It also works across budgets. A visitor does not need a luxury tasting menu to experience local cheese. It can appear in a modest bar, a rural restaurant, a hotel breakfast, a market stall, a picnic or a simple starter shared before grilled fish or a local stew.

The awards also show why the Canary Islands should not be treated as a single flat destination. Gran Canaria's winning cheeses, La Palma's pimentón cheeses and Fuerteventura's goat-cheese recognition each point to a different island story. Together they strengthen the archipelago's reputation, but separately they help visitors choose experiences that match the island they are actually visiting.

For tourism professionals, that distinction matters. A generic Canary Islands food message is useful at the top of the funnel, but island-level detail is what turns interest into action. A traveller searching for Gran Canaria holidays may respond to Agüimes and inland food routes. A La Palma visitor may be more interested in rural stays, walking and small-scale producers. A Fuerteventura guest may want to understand what to do away from the beach on a windy afternoon. Cheese gives each of those journeys a specific, local anchor.

No Travel Disruption, Just A Fresh Reason To Explore

The awards do not involve any travel restriction, airport change, beach closure, hotel disruption or new visitor rule. They are positive recognition for Canary Islands producers and a useful prompt for travellers to explore the islands through food.

That distinction is important because travel news can easily become dominated by disruption, overtourism debates, prices and transport pressure. Those issues matter, but they are not the whole story of the Canary Islands. The archipelago's visitor economy is also built by producers who preserve local knowledge, restaurants that keep island flavours visible, towns that give travellers reasons to move beyond resorts and holidaymakers who choose to spend money in ways that reach local communities.

Five cheeses winning at an international competition will not transform Canary Islands tourism overnight. But it does strengthen a credible and attractive message: the islands are not only places to visit for weather, but places to taste, understand and revisit. For travellers planning a 2026 holiday, that may be the most useful takeaway of all. Pack the swimwear, book the beach days, but leave room for a market visit, a rural lunch and a plate of cheese that tells you exactly which island you are on.