Page 97 - Spring2020

A Campaign for Real Milk

WHY IS FRESH CHEESE ILLEGAL?
By Pete Kennedy, Esq.

With all the laws on the books today favor- • Inspections, along with product detentions
ing industrial food under the guise of protect- during each inspection, of every cheese-
ing the public health, one that stands out is the maker (as well as two Whole Foods stores)
federal prohibition on fresh cheese (raw cheese who attended a 2013 workshop in Georgia
aged less than sixty days). The cheeses whose titled “Food Safety and Hygiene in Artisan/
producers are hurt by the sixty-day aging re- Farmstead Cheesemaking” that was co-
quirement are the soft-ripened and semi-soft sponsored by the Georgia Department of
cheeses defined in regulation by FDA in the Agriculture, the Innovation Center for U.S.
Code of Federal Regulations, 21 CFR 133.182 Dairy and Whole Foods. The workshop was
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and 21 CFR 133.187. designed for small-scale cheesemakers and
The production and sale of fresh cheese has also included invitations to federal and state
been legal in Europe for centuries, with an excel- inspectors, the thought being that many of
lent overall track record for safety. Moreover, the the inspectors were “not always knowledge-
legal shelf life of a raw cheese like camembert in able about artisan cheesemaking.” The
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Europe is only fifty-five days, mainly due to the inspections and detentions occurred the day
increased chance of the growth of listeria after after the workshop. As Donnelly states, “the
that time; so in the U.S., artisan cheesemakers notion that attendance at, or sponsorship
producing camembert or a similar cheese must of, an educational workshop could subject
wait longer than they should have to in order to an artisan cheesemaker or cheesemonger
get paid while being forced into selling a product to regulatory scrutiny defeated the very
that has a higher risk of contamination. Each
type of cheese has its own pH and moisture level, purpose for which these workshops were
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two among other factors that need to be taken intended.”
into account before determining the proper ag-
ing time for the cheese. • The American Cheese Society (ACS) is the
The FDA has no intention of changing its leading organization in the U.S. supporting
one-size-fits-all aging requirement for cheese, the promotion of artisan, farmstead and
but a recently published book, titled Ending the specialty cheeses. As Donnelly explains
War on Artisan Cheese, should help any effort it, “Attendees at the American Cheese
to go in that direction. The book, written by Society began to notice some interesting
Catherine Donnelly who is a professor of food connections between the dates when the an-
science and nutrition at the University of Ver- nual ACS meetings were occurring and the
mont, covers in extensive detail how the FDA’s timing of FDA recall announcements and
policies on raw cheese aren’t based on science unannounced visits to their establishments.
but rather on creating a climate of fear and in- Cheesemakers would lament that they were
timidation against artisan producers to protect unable to bring the quality assurance mem-
and expand the market share of industrial cheese bers of their organization to the ACS annual
makers. meetings because it becomes a matter of
The FDA actions Donnelly lists against routine that unannounced inspections from
artisan producers include: the FDA occur during the ACS meeting.” 4

SPRING 2020 Wise Traditions 97