This question caused no small amount of controversy. As Brits, most of us would surely guess Cheddar; and Mozzarella would also have to be a candidate, given that it's normally the cheese of choice for pizza chefs.
On Nick's blog, Dave P remarked "The answer I don't believe is that Cheese.com states that Gouda accounts for over half the world's consumption. If it does, it is wrong. Mozzarella and Cheddar account for more than half of US cheese production and the US produces just over half of the world's cheese".
I can however confirm that cheese.com does indeed describe Gouda as "one of the most popular cheeses in the world, accounting for 50 to 60 percent of the world's cheese consumption." Various other sources agree: for example, Mag for Women. Wikipedia is more circumspect, simply describing it as "one of the most popular cheeses worldwide" (my italics).
Not all sources agree though. OpenRice.com (a Singaporean site) confidently describes Cheddar as "the world's most popular cheese."
An answer on Quora.com states that "According to the Foodservice Research Institute, in the US, Mozarella is the most popular selling cheese [in the USA] with a market share of 21%. I'm guessing its popularity has something to do with pizzas ... Cheddar cheese came in second ... with a 15% market share." That's 36% altogether; this would seem to contradict Dave's figures, although this is market share and not production.
None of these websites, apart from the last one, are particularly good about stating their sources; but the consensus does seem to be that Gouda is the most popular cheese worldwide – although individual countries (e.g. the UK and the USA) clearly do have their own favourites.
© Macclesfield Quiz League 2017