Cheese identifying app helps you tell your gouda from your gruyère

Cheese is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

So it can be frustrating when we’re tucking into a delicious piece, but are clueless of what it is and how we can get it.

Thankfully, a brand new AI app is on hand to help us with our cheese identifying needs.

Inspired by the popular music app Shazam, a new app called Cheezam can tell you all the information you want to know.

Users simply need to take a photo of their mystery cheese, then the app compares the snap against its database of 9,000 images of different varieties.

It does this by looking at key features, such as the size and shape of the mould, and the way any spots are arranged in the cheese.

Isabelle Mashola, the CEO of Isahit – the company that annotated thousands of cheeses for the app – explains how the algorithm works in a little more detail.

‘Let’s take a Fourme d’Ambert and a blue cheese,’ she says.

‘For the algorithm to be able to determine the photo, it must be given indications which are supplied in the form of annotations.

‘On a blue cheese for example, we will notice that the spots are arranged in such a way.

‘The algorithm will then make the effort to recognise this feature by comparing it to other pre-annotated images. And this is how we manage to refine the calculation to the right cheese.’

So for a cheese with starry greenish spots, for example, the app suggests there’s a 95% chance it’s Fourme d’Ambert, and a 5% chance it’s Bleu des Causses.

It also offers wine pairings for the variety in question – which is great if you’re hosting a cheese and wine night.

Currently, Cheezam is only available in France – so whether UK cheese lovers will soon be able to sample the app remains unclear.

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