This brand will be able to continue with its use of wooden boxes, despite not being an AOC cheese.
There has been social media panic and outrage recently over proposed new EU legislation on packaging, to ensure it is all biodegradeable. The way the legislation was expressed it was widely interpreted as forbidding the use of the wooden boxes that some French cheeses are packaged in. But there was never an intention to apply the legislation to any product traditionally packaged in wood that has Indication Géographique Protegée (IGP) or Appellation d'Origine Controlée (AOC) certification. So certified Camembert, Epoisses, Mont d'or and Pont l'Eveque are safe.
A pre-Christmas window display of Mont d'Or in a Paris cheese boutique.
The aim of the new legislation is not just to ensure sustainable materials are used in packaging, but even more to reduce the total quantity of packaging. As an Irish MEP I saw on television put it, there isn't much sense in replacing a pile of plastic packaging with a pile of the same quantity of cardboard packaging.
Mont d'Or on the right, not only in a poplar wood box, but encircled by the traditional band of spruce to give it the special flavour.
But what could be more sustainable and biodegradable than packaging made of wood I hear you ask? The problem arises within the recycling system, as there is no dedicated logistics chain for wood, and it would be onerous to create one. There simply isn't the quantity of waste material to make it worthwhile at this point, and there is no requirement to recycle wooden packaging. Ultimately though, some people are looking at wooden boxes as a possible source of good clean wood for chip burners, already widely used for community heating facilities, and they could also be composted.
Oysters from the Atlantic coast in a poplar wood box.
The manufacturing of wooden food packaging boxes employs around 2000 people at 45 companies in France. They make 200 million little boxes annually, not just for cheeses, but for oysters and strawberries as well. The industry lobbied hard and won their point. So wooden boxes get to stay, and no doubt thrive.
Cheese display in my local supermarket, including two Camemberts and a Chaource in wooden boxes.
Epoisses.
Camemberts in the chiller cabinet at my local supermarket.
2 comments:
We are never quite sure what to do with the wooden boxes so burn them in our wood burning stove.
Jean: I think burning them in the wood stove is what most people do with them, and perfectly appropriate.
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