By using CAM, a general trend of NSLAB over time was observed.Cultivable NSLAB increased significantly in 2-, 6-, and 9-month oldcheeses when compared to 48-h old cheese, and then decreased sig-nificantly in 13-month old cheese. However, using MRS medium,total culturable lactobacilli counts did not show significant dif-ferences between cheese at 48 h, 2 and 6 months but theysubsequently decreased significantly over time. The growth trendfound in this study highlighted the relevance of high NSLAB pop-ulation densities in early ripening, which is a period of time thathas not been considered in the sampling protocols of other stud-ies [19,25]