Why Brittany has no PDO cheese

• The Cheese Fair opens this Sunday in Paris and will bring together more than 270 exhibitors from all over France.
• Brittany will be very little represented. If it provides 20% of French cow's milk, the region does not process it much into cheese.
• With the Pays-de-la-Loire, it is one of the only regions not to have a dairy PDO. A peculiarity which is above all historical.

Over five billion liters of milk come out of the udders of Breton cows each year, or 20% of French production. The leading dairy region in France, Brittany will be very little represented this weekend at the Salon du fromage. The annual meeting of one of the emblematic products of France will exhibit from Sunday its most beautiful attributes: Comté, Saint-Nectaire, Beaufort, Bleu des Causses and Ossau-Iraty will embalm the halls of the Porte de Versailles in their sweet scent. The perfect opportunity for all French regions to come and boast the advantages of their terroir with great reinforcements of PDO. All of them? No. Because Brittany does not have any cheese with a controlled designation of origin. With it, only the Pays-de-la-Loire is an exception. Explanations.

The reason for this absence is above all historical. Brittany can produce milk, it has never been very trendy cheese. “100 or 150 years ago, the only breed we could find was black magpie. The cows were small because the forage was of poor quality at the time. They gave a very fatty milk which was more suitable for making butter or cream, ”explains Benoît Darley.

Brittany, queen of raclette and emmental cheese

Based in Ruca, in the Côtes d'Armor, the young man took over the cheese factory founded by his parents in 1987 ten years ago. A time when nobody, or almost, thought of making Breton cheese. A period when the region had seen its agricultural model transformed to industrialize. “We mainly asked the farmers to do the quantity. We have seen herds of prim'holstein arriving and growing. Above all, cheese was not perceived as a pleasure as it is today, ”adds Vincent Philippe, cheese maker of the famous butter master Jean-Yves Bordier. In the past, when the cold chain did not exist, making cheese was primarily a way of preserving milk.

To say that Brittany does not produce cheese would be a mistake. Thanks to large dairy cooperatives such as Lactalis or Sodiaal, it has even become one of the leading suppliers of raclette and emmental in France. No, this is not a joke.

"On butter, we could have, but on cheese ..."

But the region has never enjoyed recognized expertise and no appellation has really emerged. “The PDO is a promise of geographical origin but also of historical know-how. But it must be carried by a collective. A single company cannot carry a PDO project on its own, "explains Michel Lacoste, the president of the National Council of Designations of Dairy Origin (CNAOL). “Nothing is closed for Brittany because it has a specific terroir. But it is necessary that actors come together ”.

Did you know that Brittany is the other country of raclette? https://t.co/p4gmik2Yb9 pic.twitter.com/dVki8DZcK4

A handful of years ago, a few producers tried to launch Ti Pavez, a seaweed cheese. "The idea was good, but something was missing, it was not yet ready," recalls Vincent Philippe. Above all, none of the manufacturers had the same product and the mayonnaise never really took. "It's difficult to create something from scratch," says Benoît Darley. He will not fight for an AOP to emerge from his native Brittany. "On butter, we could have, but on cheese, it would not make sense." The Costa Rican cheesemaker even admits to flourishing outside of all specifications. “PDO can bring a lot of things but it can be restrictive. For Saint-Nectaire, producers must transform in the morning and in the evening, after each milking. Today, it's complicated and it's no longer justified, ”says the cheese maker.

"Over the past five years, we have seen more and more beautiful things"

But in the opinion of the expert Vincent Philippe, who is preparing the competition for the best worker in France, Brittany is more and more attracted by the transformation of its milk into cheese. “Twenty years ago, there was almost nothing. But over the past five years, we have seen more and more beautiful things, ”explains the protégé of Jean-Yves Bordier, who cites as an example… the Darley cheese dairy. The world of Breton cheese is small. But it is growing.

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"20 Minutes" context

The idea for this article had sprouted from a question, coming from one of our journalists based in Lyon. "You don't have cheese in Brittany? ". Launched from the capital of gastronomy, the invective had hit the mark. "Bah if, finally, some". It will have taken me several months and the pretext of a cheese fair to give a more detailed answer.

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