Cheese and chips: parmesan producers fight fakes with microtransponders | Cheese
When is a cheese not what it seems? When it’s a fake parmesan.
Italy’s renowned parmigiano reggiano, favoured for finishing off bowls of pasta and rocket salads, is one of the most counterfeited cheeses in the world. Now its manufacturers have found a new way to hit back against the lookalikes: by adding microchips.
The move is the latest innovation from the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium (PRC), the association which oversees production, which has been trying for a century to fight off cheaper imitations that do not follow the exacting requirements to make the real deal.
The cheese, which can trace its history back to the middle ages, gained the EU’s prized protected designation of origin (PDO) status in 1996. Under those rules parmigiano reggiano – the only kind which can be called parmesan within Europe – must be made in a small part of northern Italy, including in the provinces of Parma and Reggio Emilia.
In addition, the wheels of cheese – which weigh on average 40kg (88lb) – have to be matured for at least 12 months in a mountain area, and are tested by experts two years after production to ensure they make the grade.
PDO status is given to foodstuffs “produced, processed and prepared in a given geographical area using recognised knowhow” and covers French champagne, Portuguese port and kalamata olive oil from Greece.
Given the strict rules in attaining the certification, such delicacies usually sell for higher prices, making it an enticing market for copycats. Indeed, the PRC estimates that annual global sales of counterfeit cheese reach about $2bn (£1.6bn), not far off those of the authentic product, which hit a record high of €2.9bn last year.
Now producers have been trialling the most modern of authentication methods – microtransponders about the size of a grain of salt inserted into the labels found on the rind of 120,000 wheels of parmigiano reggiano. The microchips are food-safe, but are unlikely to be eaten, given their location in…
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