Paris (AFP)

During the confinement, some cows laughed well, others cried: the coronavirus crisis propelled the consumption of pre-packaged industrial cheeses, and severely weakened the local cheeses, which decided to join forces to "save the French and European gastronomy.

Under the effect of a pre-containment shopping spree, sales of "Laughing Cow", "Caprice des dieux" and other industrial products have soared in supermarkets. While some 2,000 tonnes of brie, maroilles, munster, reblochon, selles-sur-cher or brocciu have remained on the shelf, half of which is promised destruction if no quick outlet is found.

Since mid-March, Auvergne blue and Fourme d'Ambert have lost more than 50% of their sales, Aurélien Vorger, director of the sector, told AFP.

Ditto for the rocamadour, a small creamy goat cheese produced in the Lot. On the Reblochon side, it is especially the farm cheese that was affected, while the dairy continued to be sold on the shelves.

The simultaneous closure of the main distribution channels for Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) cheeses, such as restaurants, open-air markets and supermarket shelves, caused an unprecedented drop in consumption at the time of the year. where cows, sheep and goats produce the most milk.

"The hardest hit are soft cheeses, which have the shortest shelf life" analyzes Dominique Barjolle, a teacher of economics and a researcher specializing in PDOs at the University of Lausanne. "And French cheeses, more than Swiss or Italian, which mainly include cooked pasta, with a longer maturing time and longer conservation," she explains to AFP.

"The food industry is doing well, but gastronomy is strangled," adds Michel Lacoste, breeder in Cantal and president of the National Council of Dairy Appellations (CNAOL).

Since mid-March, a series of provisional derogations has been published in the Official Journal to soften this year the strict conditions for milk collection and the rules for ripening and storage of PDOs. Goal: avoid throwing away milk or cheeses that no longer meet the specifications.

But many cheeses in surplus had to leave at bargain prices, to be melted in spreads, powders or liquids for the industry.

- Support of a collective of gastronomes -

A hastily constituted collective has just launched a call to "support our cheeses, our terroirs and our French producers" around the most famous triptych of French gastronomy: bread, wine and cheese.

Among the signatories, a baker, winegrowers and many cheese makers, as well as cooks attached to local products, including Guillaume Gomez, the chef of the Elysée, Pierre Hermé, Marc Veyrat, Patricia Constantin and Régis Marcon.

Many artists and sportspeople have signed the call: Thierry Lhermitte, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Bernard Laporte ... But not representatives of the milk and cheese giants Bel, Savencia or Danone, who have greatly benefited from the rush for supermarkets, as evidenced by their first quarter sales.

Initiatives have been launched to make excess cheeses available to the poor and to avoid waste. In Savoy, the department bought back stocks, distributed in communities. In Brittany, munsters were sold via a twinning of municipalities.

But small producers and cheese SMEs need additional help: "there is a danger, we will lose companies, producers" warns Dominique Chambon, vice-president of CNAOL.

At stake is notably access to the subsidies recently released by Brussels to finance private storage and to curb the dairy crisis: "in 2015, in three days everything was gone to large groups, especially Italian," notes Michel Lacoste, president of CNAOL.

The sector is fragile. More than 90% of French PDOs are produced by dairies, family or industrial which generate 53,000 direct jobs, and are the vector of many developments in remote rural areas (schools, veterinarian, tourism ...). And there are now only 6,000 farmers producing raw milk cheeses throughout the country, including 1,300 under the appellation.

© 2020 AFP