Galery

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"White brine cheese" from Tasmania, Wisconsin, the United Arab Emirates. This is not a joke, but products that flood the shelves of supermarkets in major markets such as Australia and the United States, causing serious damage to Greece's exports. Lost profits for Greek businesses cannot be calculated. Significantly, 90% of the consumption of white brine cheese in the USA is covered by products produced there. The problem is that this cheese is guaranteed as a product with protected designation of origin, but this is only valid within the EU. In third countries, everybody may sell white brine cheese, naming it this way, regardless of its place of origin.

The situation is similar in Australia, according to evidence both by trade representatives at the Greek Embassy and Greek companies that export their products there. The last report of the Greek Bureau for Economic and Trade Activities in Sydney shows that major retail chains sell more than 10 products with the name "white brine cheese", which are, however, mainly produced in Australia or are imported from the United Arab Emirates and Denmark.

A review of the South Cape Fine Foods' website, which is one of the two largest Australian companies in the dairy products market, is significant: the company offers 14 products named white "feta" cheese, including "Persian Fetta" and "Tasmanian Fetta", and, in most cases, these are products that are made from cow's milk with additives such as garlic and tomatoes, i.e., they are almost nothing like the real cheese. Although Greek authorities in Sydney have sought ways to deal with the problem and have turned to specialised law firms, the answer given was that the issue is complex and powerful economic lobbies of Australia will respond harshly.

The only possibility, at least for the moment, for guaranteeing Greek companies which export cheese to Australia, is the guaranteeing of trade names. Greek exports of "feta" cheese in 2011 amounted to 5,538,079 euro, while in the first six months of 2012 - to 3,428,586 euro. Some of the most famous Greek companies operate in the Australian market, such as Dodoni, Ipiros and Kolios.

The situation in the USA is no better, though exports of "feta" cheese in that direction are increasing. The company Athenos, a subsidiary of Kraft Foods, based in Wisconsin, has the biggest share of sales of these products in the USA market. There is also a significant number of companies of Americans of Greek descent, who produce and sell "feta" cheese, such as Krinos and Fantis Foods. Imports of white brine cheese in the USA amounted to 30 million euro in the first half of 2012, or a total of 3,877,000 kg of cheese. The data show that the cheese which is imported into the USA, comes mainly from Bulgaria (1,168,000 kg), followed by Greece, Spain and Italy.

Prospects for guaranteeing Greek cheese in the USA are even more distant than those in Australia. In the USA, cheese is included in the category of products-like, i.e. products that are not identified with a specific geographical origin. According to information from the Bureau of Economic and Commercial Activities in New York, since March 2012, The American Union of Dairy Producers has been participating in the international initiative Consortium for Common Food Names, which is directed against the protection of food products via the regime of protected designation of origin.

A negative consequence of the dominance of unauthentic products on foreign markets is not just that Greek companies are losing a share of the total turnover. Production of these products under different conditions and different raw materials (e.g., the use of cow's milk, and not a mixture of goat and sheep's milk in the production of white brine cheese) can give a false impression, even negative, about what "feta" cheese is really like. Similar problems occur with other products, e.g. olives produced in California in the USA are called "olives kalamon" and this is allowed by American legislation. A very strong lobby has been established regarding olives, which puts pressure for the reduction of imports of olives and olive oil.