Artisan cheese certainly qualifies as “Slow Food,” but sales of it are anything but slow.

Indeed, artisan cheese — defined as cheese “handmade in small batches with respect for the tradition of the cheese” — is the fastest-growing segment of the booming cheese industry, with some sources estimating that sales have climbed by double-digit percentages for the last couple of years.

Exact figures are difficult to come by, since the very nature of the products — handmade and often hand-cut from large blocks or wheels at retail — precludes the use of UPC scanning codes. Neither ACNielsen nor Information Resources Inc. tracks sales of artisan cheese, officials at both organizations told SN.

But industry sources confirm that the category is finding a broader market and consequently is ringing up unprecedented sales.

“Artisan cheese is on fire. There's no doubt,” said David Leonhardi, director of cheese education and events at Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, Madison.

“The industry is extremely healthy, and the growth potential is great. The lion's share of artisan cheese is probably still sold through specialty stores.”

But Leonhardi, as well as other industry sources, said that mainstream supermarkets have been catching on to the trend's potential as well. “Lund/Byerlys has done a good job with it for a long time. And certainly Wegmans and Whole Foods, but others are getting interested,” Leonhardi said.

Cheese guru and author of “The Cheese Primer,” Steven Jenkins, underscored the fact that domestic as well as imported artisan or artisanal cheese — a word said to have been coined by him — are experiencing booming sales.

“Since 1996, our U.S. retail cheese industry and the production and proliferation of domestic artisanal cheese has skyrocketed. Period,” said Jenkins, who is also a managing partner at Fairway Markets, New York.

Indicators of all sorts validate the category's growth. Notably, the number of varieties has risen dramatically, and retail customers are putting in more requests for locally made cheese.

But one of the most significant markers of the segment's growth comes from the American Cheese Society, Louisville, Ky. The organization had more than 1,200 artisan cheeses entered in its annual competition this year, up from 941 last year, and only 75 to 80 in the early '90s.

“Our entries and our conference attendance continue to grow each year,” Marci Wilson, ACS executive director, said.

Meanwhile, Zingerman's Delicatessen, an Ann Arbor, Mich.-based specialty store whose cheese department offers artisan cheeses exclusively, has just wrapped up its best sales year ever.

“And that's here, where the economy is sluggish,” said Ari Weinzweig, co-owner of Zingerman's.

While specialty stores have been artisan cheese's domain for years, the market has broadened for a variety of reasons. For one, savvy consumers who travel more and eat at restaurants more than ever before are actively looking for these cheeses in shops and supermarkets.

Artisan cheesemakers are now seeing real potential in selling some of their products through mainstream retailers. In the past, they've quaked at the thought of trying to supply a large chain, but retailers are making it clear that they want the product just for a flagship store or for only one or two selected stores. And as that door opens, all parties concerned are doing a better job of passing critical information along the supply chain, WMMB's Leonhardi said.