The “Salon du Fromage”

As we noted in a previous post, Charles de Gaulle once spoke about the many cheese varieties of France…and no better place to visualize this than at “Salon du Fromage”, the annual gathering of the French cheese industry.

I was there, enjoying the chance to taste some of the most amazing French cheeses and attending an interesting programme of workshops. The fact is that the industry is looking more and more to the certification of origin labels to certify the provenance of the produce, this is specially interesting for producers of less known types of cheese, that can this way can add to their branding and marketing efforts. Another interesting point was the transition from the French AOC (Appelation d’Origine Controllée) towards the European AOP (Appelation d’Origine Protegée, that in Britain is called PDO, protected designation of origin). There are currently 46 cheese AOCs in France of which 43 are also AOP. In the future all AOCs will eventually become AOPs. Something that should contribute to create a Europe-wide standard to recognize the origins of produce.

Among the highlights of the workshop programme was the presentation of the new AOC Charolais, a creamy goat’s cheese from Bourgogne (not to be confused with the Charollaise race of cows that could be seen in the nearby Salon de l’Agriculture!).