New process upsets cheese purists
• France’s top food body has unveiled a “revolutionary” laboratory process to create a range of cheeses that look and smell like the real thing in “days rather than months.” But purists warn the move could spell “the death of true cheese.”
Researchers at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) say they have cracked a way of massively accelerating the ripening process normally essential in creating a cheese with the required texture and aroma.
Brie and Camembert normally take about a month to mature, while a mature Comte can take up to three years. “What nature takes three weeks, three months or three years to do, we can do in two to three days using a process that is far faster and less costly,” said Romain Jeantet, INRA cheese expert.
The process, which researchers have coined From’Innov, involves splitting the production of the cheese and its aroma in the laboratory and mixing them later. “With the same material, we can thus make a cream cheese on Monday, a Camembert on Tuesday and a hard cheese on Wednesday,” said Gilles Garric, an INRA colleague, who revealed they were in talks with three dairy giants over the technique.
The result was similar to traditional cheese, researchers insisted. To make the end product more nutritious, experts can mix in probiotics — live bacteria and yeasts. But purists are appalled at what they see as the latest attempt to kill off a great French exception — smelly cheese lovingly made with raw milk on a human scale.
“This isn’t cheese at all, it’s totally synthetic,” said Veronique Richez-Lerouge, who runs the traditional cheese defence group Association Fromages de Terroirs.
“Industrial dairy groups have long dreamed of making cheese with as little milk as possible in as little time as possible so it costs as little as possible, with a consensual taste to appeal to the masses. INRA has made their dream come true,” she said. “Next they’ll be adding banana or raspberry aroma.”
She added: “This is yet another step towards creating dead food rather than letting nature run its course. Cheese is alive and needs to be ripened and matured over a long period, preferably with live raw milk.
“You cannot create this natural complexity in the laboratory. Humans are made to eat live food with diverse bacteria, not dead food, which causes all sorts of problems, such as allergies.”