Enjoying the cheese
Image credit: Quicke's
News comes that Canadian cheese maker Saputo is exporting the UK’s own Cathedral City cheddar cheeses to not only Canada, but the US. It is good to know that more tasty cheddar will be available across the pond, but as specialist and artisan cheese makers know, it’s been there for a while, in both domestic and imported formats. At any rate, I feel that better cheese lifts all palates, to paraphrase a saying.
The French dairy giant Lactalis has similarly made a move to purchase some of Kraft Heinz’s cheese businesses in the US and Canada, although I do note that Kraft Heinz is hanging onto the ever-popular Philadelphia cream cheese brand. As a market goes, the US is tops for cheese.
The North American market continues to enjoy its cheese, with the US being the largest cheese consuming country worldwide, accounting for 24 per cent of the world’s total volume, and also leading in value terms – $25.9 billion. It seems a sensible buy to get in on some of the 6.1 million tonnes eaten there yearly, according to a report from IndexBox.
It also makes the most cheese, with 6.3 million tons produced in 2019. These numbers dwarf the second largest cheese consuming country, Germany, which consumed three million tons in 2019.
This drive is not expected to continue in light of the coronavirus, and 2020 is expected to be a stagnating one for the international cheese markets. Not great.
Well, we do what we can. This weekend we enjoyed yet another shipment of cheese. Quicke’s has an autumn selection box, which I do recommend. We also got some very nice Sandford Orchards Devon Mist cider to accompany it. Sadly, I missed out on the AlpenCheddar fusion cheese, but I’ll have to be a bit quicker next time. The delivery of delicious cheese and other goods is one of the revelations of this year, due to the circumstances in which we all find ourselves. Enjoy.
- Suzanne Christiansen, editor, Dairy Industries International.
Keep in touch via email: suzanne@bellpublishing.com
Twitter: @dairyindustries or LinkedIn: Dairy Industries International magazine.
