Feta fight: Australian cheesemakers say a European free-trade agreement would be an unfair deal

With the twelfth round of Australia's free-trade agreement negotiations with the European Union set to begin next month, many domestic cheesemakers are worried the federal government will make concessions over dairy to help close the deal.

Industry concerns include the banning the use of European cheese names, such as feta and grana padano, and dropping tariffs and quotas on imported cheeses.

"This is going to see Australian shelves inundated with cheap inferior cheeses," says cheese industry veteran Penny Lawson of Penny's Cheese Shop in Potts Point, Sydney.

Lawson, a former executive officer for the Australian Specialist Cheesemakers Association, says the free-trade agreement will be damaging to all cheesemakers.

The potential to remove a $1.22 per kilogram import tariff on European cheese will especially affect Australia's fledgling artisan cheese industry, says Pecora Dairy owner Michael Cains.

"This may be free trade, but it is not fair trade. European cheesemakers are subsidised to the tune of up to 30 cents in the dollar. European cheese can land in the supermarket at the cost of production."

The NSW Southern Highlands cheesemaker refers to Danish feta selling for $22 a kilogram in his local supermarket.

"The only way the [EU] farmers and cheesemakers are making money on this is from subsidies. Australian and Kiwi farmers are the lowest subsidised in the OECD. This deal is not good for us."

Chief judge at Dairy Australia's cheese awards Russell Smith agrees that a quota expansion for European cheeses will be detrimental to the nation's fledgling artisan cheese industry.

"There is a myth that Europe – and France in particular – produces nothing but fine cheese," says Smith. "The truth is that 15 per cent is excellent. A lot of the rest is very mediocre industrially produced cheese and that could flood our supermarket and delicatessen shelves."

Australia and the EU launched negotiations for a free-trade agreement in 2018.

While addressing the National Press Club last week, Trade Minister Dan Tehan insisted that negotiations were still "business as usual" despite a damaging rift between Australia and France triggered by the Morrison government's new pact to counter China.

Finalisation of the agreement is expected sometime next year, said Tehan.

"In fact, as a demonstration of the business as usual approach we continue to take, I have just signed off on our GI offer so our negotiators can discuss it with the EU."

Functioning like a trademark, GIs – Geographical Indications – protect food names such as Parmigiano-Reggiano. The EU has demanded Australian producers stop using these 166 protected food names since the beginning of free-trade talks.

Many of the non-dairy foods – Slovenian ham kraški pršut, say – are not commonly made in Australia, but domestic versions of cheeses such as feta, gruyere, grana padano, fontina and gorgonzola are widely available.

The EU is also seeking protection against labelling such as "feta-style" or "gruyere-like".

Details of the federal government's new GI offer are yet to be made public, however Dairy Australia, the body representing dairy processors, says rebranding, relabelling and loss of sales could have a $220 million dollar impact on the industry and lead to the loss of up to 1000 jobs.

"This free trade agreement is going to be detrimental," says Dairy Australia's head of trade and industry strategy Charles McElhone.

"The Australian government is doing it to open up trade, but the Europeans are using it as an opportunity to close us down. We understand that Parmigiano-Reggiano comes from Parma and Reggio Emilia in Italy, but they can't claim 'parmesan'.

"They are trying to commandeer common cheese names, names that are commonplace and don't refer to a particular part of Europe. There's no place called 'Feta' in Greece, but the Europeans don't want us to use feta on our cheese."

There is also neufchatel, originally from Neufchatel-en-Bray in Normandy, France. Large scale processor Tatura, owned by Bega, makes and exports a cream cheese called neufchatel. Under the FTA, that would be stopped.

Meanwhile, popular brand Lemnos Traditional Fetta would likely need to be renamed "white cheese in brine" or similar.

"We can't confuse customers by suddenly changing the names," says Melbourne cheesemonger Hakim Halim from Queen Victoria Market cheese store Ripe, which spotlights small Australian producers.

"The sector is strong and growing … it's where the Australian wine industry was 20 years ago. What the industry needs now is support, encouragement, certainty, and an even playing field.

"Those traditional names help consumers navigate their way through the world of cheese. If a recipe calls for feta they are going to ask for feta, not brined cheese. We need time to educate our customers."

The Europeans see it differently. "GIs were established by small producers in regions across the EU, rising from age-old methods obligatory for quality control," says Cornelis Keijzer, head of trade at EU Delegation Australia.

"It covers methods of production such as how milk is treated and on what the dairy animals are fed. What I don't like are the products that are imitators of our cheeses [made] without the rules and procedures that GIs cover."

Keijzer says that in Greece, feta is made only from sheep and goat milk from indigenous breeds and never cows' milk as it is in Australia.

A spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says that "Australia will only agree to protect specific GIs names when we are confident of the overall package of market access outcomes, which will be toward the end of FTA negotiations".

"We have not agreed on any outcome on feta at this stage."

Russell Smith says the GIs are "not protecting these cheeses, it is a denial of their origins".

"It amounts to a total lack of acknowledgement of the often very long lineage of many of our current day Australian-made products. A cheese without a history becomes a much diminished product."

Smith refers to cheesemakers including Sicilian born Giorgio Linguanti who makes 65 Italian-style cheeses at That's Amore in Melbourne's north.

"Under these rules I will not be able to call my cheese grana padano and will have to remove Il Tricolore from my label," he says, referring to the small Italian flag on his brand's packaging.

"We are proudly Australian using Australian labour and ingredients. I don't see why the government should bow to Brussels."

Three Aussie cheeses comparable to their European counterpart

Section28 La Saracca

A tribute to Italian aged fontina, this washed raw milk cheese is aged for six months in an Adelaide Hills cave. Aromatic and pleasingly pungent, with a smooth, supple straw-yellow interior and rich buttery flavour.

Long Paddock Driftwood

A soft cow's milk cheese made by French cheesemaker Ivan Larcher in central Victoria and compared to Vacherin Mont D'or from France. Matured in a spruce bark belt, it has a rich and creamy, almost liquid, centre when ripe with a slightly funky aroma and resinous tang.

Pecora Yarrawa

If you like Ossau-Iraty from the French Basque country, try this semi-hard raw sheep milk cheese from the NSW Southern Highlands. A firm yet supple cheese with clean herbaceous and floral flavours and a lingering finish.

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