The president of France’s National Council of Appellations of Dairy Origin (CNAOL) has called on the French to help the nation's farmers during the COVID coronavirus pandemic, by eating more cheese. Michel Lacoste said sales of cheese since 17 March have slumped by 60 percent after authorities introduced lockdown measures as consumers turned to basic necessities.
The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown have also resulted in an oversupply, with the industry currently reporting some 2,000 tons of cheeses sitting waiting for a buyer. “We farmers, producers, we not confined. We didn’t stop working. We worked every day”, said Lacoste, while noting that producers could be left with 5,000 tons of overstock by the time the lockdown is lifted and citizens return to their normal cheese consumption levels.
For 80 percent of the cheese in question, the shelf life does not exceed 8 weeks, and for some cheese, it is less than a month.
Now that authorities have announced that the nation will gradually reemerge from lockdown starting 11 May, CNAOL has called on the French to quickly consume more cheese, otherwise thousands of tons of fine French product will end up being thrown away. Some producers have already disposed their cheese by giving it away, melting it down or making products of lesser quality or even destroying it.
CNAOL asserted that the industry is in danger. "Beyond the risk of causing immense waste, the sustainability of a sector is at stake and this could have major consequences for rural areas, for which this sector is often the only economic activity to be expected”, the organization said in a statement.
France is the European Union’s second-largest milk producer and the country’s dairy industry is one of the key drivers of the nation’s economy. In 2016, the sector posted a trade surplus of 3.6 billion euros. Lacoste said that French cheesemakers have already lost €157 million in turnover since the start of the COVID coronavirus lockdown.
