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New FDA Regulations Putting the Squeeze on Some Cheesemakers

New FDA Regulations Putting the Squeeze on Some Cheesemakers


UNITED STATES

A new rule change by the FDA has dramatically cut the limits for nontoxigenic E. coli found in cheeses sold in the United States from 100 MPN per gram to 10 MPN per gram, leaving many cheesemakers out in the cold. 

With this rule change, previously popular varieties, such as Roquefort, France's top selling blue cheese, have found themselves on the FDA's Import Alert list, banning them from being legally imported into the United States for sale. According to the LA Times, in order to be removed from this list, the cheesemaker in question would be required to pass a 5 series of FDA screening tests, a costly process that can take months to go through.

American cheesemakers, like those at Oregon’s Rogue Creamery, are similarly upset by the new rules.

“There was no health risk in all the years we operated at 100 MPN,” shared Rogue Creamery's David Gremmels of Oregon’s. “We look at this as an arbitrary change.

“People need some microbial diversity in their life,” agreed fellow Rogue’s cheesemaker, Cary Bryant. “This is going to create people with immune systems that can never handle anything.”

The LA Times backs up these claims, explaining that it is E. coli bateria already live in to stomach tract of every living human being, and are harmless in the great majority of cases. The FDA however considers this microbe as “sanitation marker.” Cheesemakers protest this distinction, arguing that it is next to impossible to consistently produce raw-milk cheese varieties in compliance with the new standards, regardless of the cleanliness of their facilitates.

Even those who feel they will be able to meet the new standards have concerns.

“I’m not worried about my ability to meet those standards,” said Andy Hatch, Owner of Wisconsin’s Uplands Cheese Co, after discontinuing his widely popular Rush Creek Reserve variety. “I’m worried about what new standards are going to show up unannounced. What if, a month from now, I have 14,000 pounds of Rush Creek in my aging room and they say ‘zero nontoxigenic bacteria?’”

It is not just cheesemakers who have been hurt by this new policy either. Retailers who have depended on these widely popular cheeses to stock their dairy aisles, have now suddenly had their supply cut off.

“We carried eight or nine Beillevaire cheeses, and we can’t get any of them right now,” says Andrew Steiner of Andrew’s Cheese in Santa Monica. “People like him are just going to give up. The American market is not the biggest part of their business. If a shipment gets destroyed, they’re likely to say, ‘We’re not trying that again.’”

Stay tuned to DeliMarketTV for updates on how the industry copes with these new regulations.  

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