Electronic nose presents a rapid method to determine quality characteristics of foodstuffs. Ion mobility spectrometry allows rapid and simple on-site determination of gaseous compounds. Ion mobility based electronic nose system "MGD-1" was used to determine the separation of various hard and extra-hard cheese samples via headspace analysis. The verification of the electronic nose system was performed for different applications such as the discrimination of Emmental cheeses based on either age or geographical origin, and the discrimination of different cheeses based on variety. Nine month ripened Emmental cheeses were successfully discriminated from Emmental cheeses with 3 or 6 month ripening time. The results obtained from Emmental cheeses and other hard and extra-hard cheese varieties showed that the MGD-1 system is of a significant potential for discrimination of the cheese samples. (c) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd.