the vertical cut performed with an industrial cutter tool necessary to obtain cheese eighths and slices,
led to the contamination of 75% of the paste samples of cheeses S60 and P80a, which presented the highest rind initial contamination levels. Lower L. monocytogenes rind contamination resulted lower transfer to samples of cheeses S80 and P120, with 41.7% and 33%, respectively, of samples having a pathogen presence after cutting.