Cousances-lès-Triconville (France) (AFP)

In a room with large windows opening onto the countryside, Meaux bries drip onto a rush mat: more than 200 km east of Meaux (Seine-et-Marne) the Dongé cheese factory in Cousances-lès- Triconville is one of the three factories in the Meuse, a department which produces two-thirds of this famous cheese made from raw milk.

In this rural and agricultural department, 55 dairy farmers deliver their milk daily to Renard-Gillard (Sodiaal group), the cheese company of Raival (Lactalis) and the Dongé family, the last independent cheese dairy.

The share of cow's milk bries produced in the Meuse has increased in recent years from 75% to 67%, but the department "remains the main manufacturing area", specifies Bruno Gourdon, coordinator of the Union of Brie de Meaux and from Melun.

At the end of the 19th century, the manufacture of soft cheese with a flower rind shifted to the East due to the increase in cereal crops which took precedence over milk production in its historic cradle, Seine-et-Marne.

In 1980, the Protected Designation of Origin (AOC), which became Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) in 1996, determined a large production area in seven departments (Seine-et-Marne, Loiret, Yonne, Aube, Marne, Haute-Marne and Meuse).

6,465 tonnes of Meaux bries were made in 2018 by seven manufacturers and four refiners, from the milk of 293 producers, according to Mr. Gourdon.

In a large building in Cousances-lès-Triconville, a village of 140 inhabitants, the Dongé brothers, Luc, 48, and Jean-Michel, 52, watch over their production.

"The grandfather transformed a few tens of liters of milk and sent his cheeses to the halls of Paris via the train which passed two kilometers from here", when he took over the cheese factory in 1922, says Luc Dongé.

A century later, the gestures have remained the same: "Everything is done by hand", insist the brothers. They have invested "a good year of turnover" to build a modern building and "meet the standards of today and tomorrow", continues Mr. Dongé.

The cheese dairy employs around sixty people and processes eleven million liters of milk per year from farms within a radius of thirty kilometers.

Some 400,000 bries of Meaux, packed in a box of Vosges poplar, are sold each year mainly to wholesalers or retailers, very little in mass distribution (5%). A quarter of the production is marketed for export.

- "Brie de Meuse?" -

The cheeses, with a fluffy rind, are ripened four to eight weeks at constant temperature and humidity, and turned regularly by hand, specifies Luc Dongé. "To have quality, there must be a requirement at all times".

A new specification for the PDO, studied by the European Union, is to come into force after the summer.

The new text provides in particular that 85% of the feed for the herds must come from the appellation zone and that the cows must graze 150 days a year or benefit from specific feed.

Nothing changes for the manufacturing, but the criteria of the controls were raised.

The Renard-Gillard cheese factory, 85 employees, installed since 1886 in Biencourt-sur-Orge, has chosen to robotize certain stages.

In the midst of the milky scent, employees, boots and white aprons, fill the curd molds with a brie shovel, in a circular motion. "The molding is done with a brie shovel, this operation will never be able to be mechanized. It is an essential stage", slips the director, Romuald Auriemma, recalling that a cheese of about three kilos requires 25 liters of raw milk .

On average, 3,000 Meaux bries come out of it every day. "We don't have a standardized product all year round," insists Mr. Auriemma.

Regularly, the Meaux bries made in Meuse return from the Paris Agricultural Show with medals.

So why not rename the Brie de Meaux to Brie de Meuse? "Impossible!" Exclaims Mr. Gourdon, "the manufacturers are too attached to the Brie de Meaux!". But Romuald Auriemma would like the idea: "It would enhance our region".

© 2020 AFP