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French 'camembert war' continues
Exciting times are ahead for the major French camembert producers Lactalis, Gillot and Isigny St. Mère: can they still refer to their factory cheeses as 'Norman camembert' or must they adapt the labels to the Official requirements?
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The large dairy companies are involved in a drawn-out legal battle with the traditional Normandy cheese makers, who believe that only their camembert should be called Normandy because it is a product with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), such as the North Holland natural cheese in the Netherlands. Moreover, the camembert must be made from raw milk.
Traditional and factory cheese
Lactalis and other major camembert manufacturers no longer want to discuss this. Their designation of “produced in Normandy” should suffice, they say. Moreover, they now want to put an end to this protracted argument. The small farmers should be quiet and stop complaining about factory camembert, which also comes from Normandy and is no longer made from raw milk for the sake of consumer safety.
That is why Lactalis et al. went to court to silence the small traditional producers. The court in Caen will make a final ruling in mid-February.
It is striking that there is apparently no supervisor in France who had put an end to the dispute much earlier. In the Netherlands, for example, the COKZ, in collaboration with other inspections, checks whether cheese producers do not abuse designations of origin and the like. It seems that this does not work that way in France.