cheese maker Pierre Coulon fights in Camembert against pasteurization

“Regularly, the large dairy groups try to include the pasteurization of Camembert de Normandie in the regulations, says the artisan cheese maker Pierre Coulon to the magazine ‘1:15 p.m. on Saturday’ (replay). This would allow them to increase their volumes and also to switch their classic range to the ‘Made in Normande’, ‘PDO’ range. [Appellation d’origine protégée]. “

“We are against it! The Camembert de Normandie must absolutely remain with raw milk. And my voice is as important as that of a large group”, specifies the one who created in Paris a social and solidarity dairy in which associates and employees receive the same salary. He has just opened his cheese factory in the village of Camembert itself …

“In this symbolic village, we have large groups”

Maintaining raw milk in the PDO label is the last battle, because 95% of camemberts sold in France are made with pasteurized milk. By settling in the village with a name known all over the world, the cheese maker who pays producers two more for his milk than the usual price dons David’s dress facing Goliath: “Cheese is diversity, it is a farm, artisanal, independent production. And in this symbolic village, we have large groups.”

Lactalis, the king of industrial cheese, reigns over Camembert. He displayed his flagship brands a few steps from the church, owned the Maison du Camembert and had a cheese factory built in the village twelve times the size of Pierre Coulon’s: “I don’t want to leave it all to them, what! It’s out of the question!”

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