Thank you Trevor for all of the information about Skyr. Super interesting.
Regarding Iceland as a market for cheese: I wonder if there's any imports of high quality products made with raw milk at all, did you see any? I imagine there's a bit of Danish cheese, but did you see anything from the rest of Europe other than factory produced?
Thanks Martin, there are imported raw milk cheeses aged 6 months with a certain dry matter, meaning only hard cheeses. It’s only the large scale pdo cheeses that make it and not many of them. Iceland consumes a huge amount of cheese, but it’s mainly made by producers here, often similar to danish styles.
It’s actually 6 months, I just found that! And no, making cheese from unpasteurized milk is illegal. It’s unclear what that is based on. Laws put into place in the 20s during TB outbreaks were never changed, became paradigmatic.
Wow, that's a new one, never heard of a 6 month rule. It's so easy nowadays to have batches tested for pathogenic bacteria. It'd be so easy to set up rules that are super safe and really good for both artisan cheesemakers and consumers.
I hope they open their minds to science and change the regulations soon.
Neither have I!! I think informing officials about the validity of testing is the route forward. And using the example of reforms in Norway that have allowed raw milk cheesemaking to grow. The forces preventing reform here mirror those in many countries, but are more obvious and hopefully changes can happen quickly due to the small population and growing awareness.
Fascinating article
Thank you Trevor for all of the information about Skyr. Super interesting.
Regarding Iceland as a market for cheese: I wonder if there's any imports of high quality products made with raw milk at all, did you see any? I imagine there's a bit of Danish cheese, but did you see anything from the rest of Europe other than factory produced?
Thanks Martin, there are imported raw milk cheeses aged 6 months with a certain dry matter, meaning only hard cheeses. It’s only the large scale pdo cheeses that make it and not many of them. Iceland consumes a huge amount of cheese, but it’s mainly made by producers here, often similar to danish styles.
And is it legal to make raw-milk cheese aged 60 days like the ones they import? Or it's all banned for local cheesemakers?
It’s actually 6 months, I just found that! And no, making cheese from unpasteurized milk is illegal. It’s unclear what that is based on. Laws put into place in the 20s during TB outbreaks were never changed, became paradigmatic.
Wow, that's a new one, never heard of a 6 month rule. It's so easy nowadays to have batches tested for pathogenic bacteria. It'd be so easy to set up rules that are super safe and really good for both artisan cheesemakers and consumers.
I hope they open their minds to science and change the regulations soon.
Neither have I!! I think informing officials about the validity of testing is the route forward. And using the example of reforms in Norway that have allowed raw milk cheesemaking to grow. The forces preventing reform here mirror those in many countries, but are more obvious and hopefully changes can happen quickly due to the small population and growing awareness.