Clarity reached about real camembert

After three months of negotiations and decades of smaller farmers’ dissatisfaction, there is finally an agreement on a list of quality checks for camembert cheese.

AOP Camembert

There has been turmoil in France for more than twenty years about which cheeses can call themselves camembert. Typically, only non-pasteurized milk from a particular type of Normandy cow can yield camembert, because that is the way smaller farmers make it and which gets the label “AOP Camembert” (Appelation d’origine controlée = Protected designation of origin).

However, the major manufacturers quickly found a loophole and called their own cheeses “Camembert made in Normandy”, even though they did not exactly use Normandy cows. Customers failed to see the difference and the smaller farmers struggled. Earlier complaints failed to change the situation, which is why the French consumer organization “Fromages de Terroir” asked the government to intervene, which led to official talks.

“Worst scenario”

The agreement is a bit of a compromise: major companies will have to get 30 % from their milk from Normandy cows and the artisan manufacturers agreed to allow pasteurized camembert to carry the AOP label.

Fromages de Terroir is not happy with the agreement, calling it “the worst possible scenario”. “It signals the death of Normandy camembert”, is the fierce opinion of the consumer organisation as quoted by Forbes.