Fromgirls fight back against drop in French cheese sales

The Telegraph ^ | 2/26/2010 | Peter Allen in Paris

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Charles de Gaulle famously bemoaned the difficulties involved in running a country with 246 different types of cheese.

But it seems world famous Gallic varieties including camembert, roquefort and brie are increasingly falling out of favour.

Although the average Frenchman still eats almost a pound of cheese per week, making the country the second biggest consumer of the food in Europe after Greece, it is increasingly likely to be a processed foreign variety.

New figures show raw-milk cheeses from rural France, which until the Second World War accounted for nearly all consumption, now make up just seven per cent of those eaten. Instead, pasteurised, plastic-wrapped varieties are on the ascent, along with Swiss emmental, Italian mozzarella and Greek feta.

Figures from the Centre National Interprofessionnel de l’Economie Laitière (CNIEL), the professional dairy body, show that camembert and brie sales last year dropped by two per cent, while feta sales were up by 10 per cent.

The Association Fromages de Terroirs (AFT), which aims to protect France’s traditional cheese culture, is now trying to fight back with a series of posters of “Fromgirls”, displaying scantily clad women working in the industry. All are meant to be defending an old fashioned culture which is just as much about beautiful young women as it is about cheese.

The Association Fromages de Terroirs is now trying to fight back with a series of posters of 'Fromgirls'

Veronique Richez-Lerouge, of the AFT, said: “The French have forgotten what real cheese is like. Buying cheese has become like buying a box of washing powder.”

Globalisation and safety regulations introduced by the European Union have played a part. Pasteurisation – the germ killing process – has helped wipe out many raw-milk cheeses. Workers are also eating more quick snacks at lunchtime,

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