When the doyen of all things cheese in America Max McCalman posts an article on his FaceBook page from Newsweek regarding the very sad state of affairs in the French artisanal cheese world, you need to take notice. The article entitled French Cheesemakers Crippled by EU Health Measures by
Ana Pouvreau and Mark Porter outline the ongoing David and Golith battle between the milk industry and the artisanal cheese makers of not just France but one would imagine elsewhere in the EU. Unfortunately, this situation has been longstanding and truly has wide reaching effects on the cheesemakers, the small diary farmers and ultimately the consumer.
Plain and simple, the big guys who want to dominate markets have no tolerance for the little guys. Their industrial processes, cheap, inferior milk and unforgiving bottom lines force them to use their immense power to shape the products available and the political landscape. There is an axiom about too many taxes kill tax, and the same idea can be applied here. Too many mediocre industrial, pasterized cheeses will ultimately obliterate "cheese".
It has always puzzled me why these industrial conglomerates drive the milk prices down thus destroying the small milk producers, in order to pump out crap, i.e., pasturized, tasteless, long-life "cheese" to control the market with their size, and also feel the need to squeeze out what is perceived as competion by the artisanal cheesmaker creating lait cru (unpasterised) cheese. These giants with deep pockets use thier influence to bury the little producers in regulations that will ultimately, and effectively, outlaw their products.
If people want to buy industrialized products in supermarkets or grocery stores and let them sit in their refigerators for weeks, let them, it is their choice, sad as it may be. But some of us who want to spend our hard earned cash on more expensive, and what we perceive as better products, then why should we not have that choice and right? Democracy and freedom of choice at work; market segmentation and profit margin intact...n'est pas? But no, this is not the mentality of the big agrobusinesses! Theirs is to dominate and kill off ALL competition. In France, this "competition" represents a meer 10% of the market. What company would not, and should not, be satisfied with that?
The president of an organization, Fromages de Terroirs, that supports unpasterized cheese producers in France, Veronique RICHEZ-LEROUGE, has waged this battle here in France for quite some time now. So she is now joined by
Max McCalman on the American front to say - save our cheese! If it can happen in the EU it also happening in the US!
We, as supporters of artisanal producer, the diversity of our regional countryside and our terroir must not let this situation deteriorate further. A way of life is at
stake as well as our own health. This is an example of capitalism when it is
at it's worst and this course needs to be changed! Please do your part. Stand up and
fight!
Aux armes chers citoyens et citoyennes! Viva la revolution!
