International- Parmesan
cheese comes from one specific region ofItaly called Emilia Romagna, which was hit particularly hard by thecoronavirus . - As of April 15th, 12% of Italy's confirmed cases were in Emilia Romagna.
- This put the
parmesan cheese industry right at the center of the current crisis. - I spoke with Nicola Bertinelli, the president of the
Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium and also the owner of a dairy, to understand how the coronavirus crisis is affecting the making of Italy's most iconic cheese. - Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
Claudia Romeo: Parmesan cheese comes from a specific region of Italy called Emilia Romagna. It is also a region that was hit particularly hard by the coronavirus. As of April 15, 12% of Italy's confirmed cases were in Emilia Romagna. This put the Parmesan cheese industry right at the center of the current crisis.
The whole country went into lockdown on March 10, with only essential jobs allowed to carry on, including Parmesan production. I spoke to Nicola Bertinelli, the president of the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium and also the owner of a dairy, to understand how the coronavirus crisis is affecting the making of Italy's most iconic cheese.
Nicola: We're talking about 335 small dairies, 2,860 small businesses. They're all run by families. So if a family member contracts coronavirus, all the other people who have come into contact with them in the last two weeks would go into quarantine. Look, the ingredients of Parmigiano-Reggiano are milk, then rennet, which is the molecule that clots the milk, and then we add a bit of salt. So the ingredients are pretty simple, and it's not a problem to source them.
Claudia: According to Nicola, dairies are not fighting against a shortage of milk or other ingredients. Their biggest issue is the virus itself.
Nicola: To say we sell our milk because we don't have enough dairymen able to transform it into Parmesan, so we sell it to the milk industry, that is obviously the last resort because it's like saying we grow some fantastic Nebbiolo grapes to make Barolo and then we send it to be distilled because we can't make Barolo. So, yeah, that milk won't be thrown away. But nobody knows how this health emergency will evolve. We studied a few options so that the milk doesn't go to waste.
Claudia: To avoid a milk surplus and being forced to sell it, the 335 Parmesan dairies have started to work together, share vats, and accept another dairy's milk if its personnel is sick. Some retired dairymen have been called back to work, and cheese production has been extended to the evenings too.
Nicola: When it's not possible to keep a 1-meter distance, like the dairymen lifting the curd from the vat, these dairymen have a FFP2 mask.
Claudia: Nicola's dairy hasn't had to resort to any of these measures yet. But three dairies in the region have had to send their milk to other dairies, and one dairy has been forced to do what Nicola describes as the absolute last resort and sell their milk to a milk company.
The crisis has also caused other changes. According to Nicola, Parmesan cheese makers are taking measures to implement social distancing, washing hands as much as possible, and keeping access limited. But that might not always be possible. As you can see from this footage from my 2018 visit, some steps of cheese making require dairymen to be in close contact with each other, like when 50-kilo blocks of curd like this one are transferred into molds. So how are they managing that while keeping the environment safe?
Claudia: Another instance where social distancing might be hard to implement is when it comes to inspect the cheese before it's ready to be sold as Parmigiano-Reggiano. This happens after 12 months and is typically done by a third-party master grader who works for the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium.
Nicola: In that case it's the Consortium, which provides its graders all the personal protective equipment. But that goes beyond the face masks, because we also provide an apron, glasses, obviously gloves in order for this operation to be carried with maximum security.
Claudia: No matter which step of production, cheese making is a job that requires touching the cheese with bare hands, an evergreen dilemma that perhaps now has taken a whole new meaning.
Nicola: We have milk that is a live product, a product that changes every day. It has a different reaction to production every day. And so only a person with great experience — that is, the dairyman — has the ability to feel. We talk about feelings of milk. So you have to put your hands in the curd because you can't have a machine with feelings. Rest assured, because viruses — and it's not Parmigiano-Reggiano that says it, but science — viruses need a host to develop, and in the case of COVID-19, that is the human being. So, in this instance, rest assured, but not only for Parmigiano-Reggiano. This applies to every agricultural product, of any country and of any provenance.
Claudia: While this may be the biggest health crisis Parmesan dairies have ever faced, this is not the first time they have faced difficult times. In 2012, a magnitude 6 earthquake struck the region, and warehouses full of Parmesan wheels crashed to the ground, damaging a million wheels, which at the time accounted for 30% of production. That triggered a wave of solidarity among the Parmesan dairies.
Nicola: All the other dairies taxed themselves, giving 1 euro in a fund for every kilogram of cheese produced so that destroyed dairies could be rebuilt. Just like the cheese that crashed under the rubble, with unlikely aging, all dented, was actually sold to Italians, who responded incredibly, showing that to Italians Parmigiano-Reggiano is much more than a slice of cheese. We all feel a part of the world of Parmigiano-Reggiano. But production of Parmigiano-Reggiano never stopped. Because Parmigiano-Reggiano is more than just a product sold on the market; it's made for the community.
Claudia: So production won't stop even now?
Nicola: No, production won't stop. At least because we are 335 small dairies, so some may be in trouble, but the others, as it is happening now, will reach out and give a hand to their colleagues. We could say that this is a very Emilian principle. This is in Emilians' DNA. I believe a lot of forms of cooperation were born in Emilia Romagna because there is a lot of this feeling that if the person next to you is not doing well, you're not that happy either. So, amongst a thousand flaws, we have this pretty strong mutualism.
Claudia: How are Italians responding to this new crisis? According to Nicola, with people confined to their homes, doing more cooking and looking for comfort in the foods they love, the demand for Parmesan has never been so high.
Nicola At a time of psychological difficulties, Parmigiano-Reggiano is a little cuddle. So rewarding ourselves by buying Parmigiano-Reggiano rather than a no-name product — this is what's happening. There's another factor. Given that we tend to go out less — one, to uphold the law; two, because there's a one-hour line to get into the supermarket — you tend to get groceries once a week, every 10 days, and buy preservable products, and Parmigiano-Reggiano is extremely preservable. What scares us is that if this health crisis doesn't end, we may go into a deep recession, and people won't have enough disposable income to buy not only Parmigiano-Reggiano, but to go grocery shopping at all. Of course, compared to other sectors we are lucky because we are selling Parmesan, but we're not really calm. Because what we've been saying until now is a real risk we see — but we obviously hope that the government and not only Italy, but the European Union, take action. Because this is the first big test for the European Union. If there's a union, there has to be a solidarity pact. What happens among dairies in the world of Parmigiano-Reggiano is what should happen among member states of the European Union.
Read the original article on Insider