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Cheesemakers experiment with microchips to authenticate Parmigiano Reggiano (english.elpais.com)
submitted 1 year ago by boem@lemmy.world to c/europe@feddit.de
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[-] tal@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Parmigiano Reggiano

Producers estimate that global sales of counterfeit cheese amount to around $1.73 billion (€1.6 billion) annually.

In the United States alone, the production of imitation Italian cheeses reached an astonishing 5.7 billion pounds (2.6 billion kilos) in 2021, according to Coldiretti.

Oh, for Chrissake. It's not a counterfeit. "Parmesan and Reggiano" is a genericized identifier in the US. Everyone in the US knows that they're buying a variety of cheese, not a cheese from Italy. If you want something from Italy, you look on the label for a "product of Italy".

Saying that this is a counterfeit is roughly equivalent to me saying that the EU produces counterfeit Wendy's food because Wendy's-the-hamburger-company doesn't own the Wendy's trademark in the EU. Nobody in the Netherlands going to Wendy's is expecting that they're getting something from Wendy's-the-hamburger-chain.

[-] alokir@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

This is a cultural thing, in Europe we take these kind of things much more seriously. We take pride in our regional products and they're protected by law. It's not tied to a company like in your example, that we care much less about, it's more a matter of national or regional identity.

But this logic goes even further. For example, in my home country you can't label almond milk as "almond milk" since it's not actually milk but a plant product.

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this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2023
68 points (90.5% liked)

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