The production of AOP Salers cheese, in Cantal, is stopped from this Friday for an indefinite period because of the drought.
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This is information reported by France Bleu Pays d’Auvergne: the production of AOP Salers cheese, in Cantal, is stopped from this Friday, August 12 for an indefinite period because of the drought. which has affected the whole of France for several weeks. Salers is one of the five AOP (protected designation of origin) cheeses from Auvergne (Cantal, Saint-Nectaire, Fourme d’Ambert and Bleu d’Auvergne).
The producers of this cheese simply can no longer respect the specifications of the confection. One of the criteria for producing a salers is that the cows eat at least 75% pasture grass.
Except that the majority of the 76 breeders of the AOP are currently faced with green meadows that have turned yellow, burned by the sun. “There is nothing left to eat at my house. The ground is so dry, hard, that in places it looks like ashes. It’s dust”, explains Laurent Roux, breeder at the Gaec de la Calsade in Badailhac. His cows have not been grazing since June 25.
“Our product still has a certain notoriety with consumers, we don’t want to break it”explains the head of the AOP, Laurent Lours, who estimates that the production of salers will drop by at least 15% this year.