http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business...l?cid=30831662

"
Swiss cheese priced out of market

Exports of Swiss cheese dropped 2.4 per cent in the first half of 2011, while imports of foreign varieties rose by more than six per cent.

Hardest hit was Switzerland’s biggest seller, Emmental (sometimes known simply as Swiss cheese in North America), with a decline of 17 per cent or 7,548 tons compared with the same period last year"


Im still buying it much better quality

The import of foreign cheese is no problem at all. The drop of exports IS. The cheese industry is an industry where the reduction of costs is very difficult. If not impossible. And so, Swiss cheese IS an industry to suffer from the developments of the exchange rate.

Add to this that Emmentaler over the past 40 years has not become tastier, but rather less. While Gruyère can count on a kind of Romand solidarity, Emmentaler canNOT count on a similar thing in the "Suisse Alèmanique".

Those Emmentaler chaps of course might answer some very basic questions. Why is the Emmentaler Cheese my cousin and his wife buy in Migros and COOP in Langenthal so much better than what I can get in Migros and Coop here (same price) ?

According to our newspaper- it is the combination of bigger imports of foreign cheeses (bought by many Swiss instead of Swiss cheese as much cheaper) AND the high Swiss Franc which has hit exports hard, which is the causing the problems.

True. But at the other hand, two CH women and me, at the British cheese centre in Viadukt compared cheeses on offer with Emmentaler and agreed that some Cheddar was equal to Emmentaler around here in the 1960ies OR around in areas of the Canton of Bern still now. Those producers might stop delivering the 1st class level or their stuff to London and the 3rd class level to Zurich ! They also should see that non-exporting producers in the Canton of Zurich are catching up. The danger to those local producers here are NOT the foreign suppliers but the BIG ones in the Emmental and in the Val de Gruyère. On the other hand, those ZH producers cannot go into the export business under present conditions as their local costs are far too high to be competitive on the international markets. And, in regard to the Emmental, those in charge on the federal level in the past totally failed to guard the name "Emmental". I mean "Emmentaler Cheese" from Austria, the USA or wherever simply is FAKE ! Some Federal Employees were busy in trying to defend a village named Champagne but were too dull to guard the Emmental !

ON the other hand- Emmenthal producers are allowed to put Emmenthal on their labels, Champagne wine growers (Champagne is in the hill above Yverdon, funnily enough next to Provence,lol) are not even allowed to put Vin de Champagne on theirs.

The difference is very important. Emmental IS Emmental, an important region of Bern, but "Champagne" is just a village. In German speaking Switzerland, nobody ever realized a potential problem as "Vin de Champagne" here is Wein der Champagne" while what in French is Vin de Champagne here is Champagner (ChampagneR with the R spoken !) --

Add to this that the Emmental is in BERN, and the Bernese may be slow, but do never forget Those chaps in the world faking REAL Emmentaler may get the revenge of those Emmentalers in some 20 or 30 or 50 years

add to this that "Emmentaler Käse" is what those Austrian crooks put onto their non-Emmentaler cheese

And the French- have you ever tasted French Emmenthal - it is like old rubber boots, without the taste!

I am now with those working to get an AOC for our absinthes here- each to their own

No I never out principle taste ANY of those fakes

In the US they always ask 'would you like Swiss (cheese) with that?' and I always reply 'if it is really Swiss, I'll have some' and they always look stunned, so I say 'forget it'.

I've often seen that but never knew what Americans meant when they said "Swiss cheese". Thanks!

Well, you guys are faking Tilsiter, so we're on par.

A) Tilsiter is not really on top here
B) Tissiter was launched by Swiss cheese specialits in Ostpreussen
C) But the Tilsit region (east of the Memel) in 1919 became Lithuanian, the SovietUnion, and the Lituanian again

To me, Tilsitier is not Swiss cheese but German-Lithuanian cheese. So that an agreement guarding the Emmentaler-cheese in exchange with labelling Tisiter-Cheese as Lithuanian cheese would be excellent

Thanks for that! I would never have guessed it.

Whats a good Swiss(made not just the cheese with holes...) cheese? I tried Le Gruyère but didn't care for it.

How are you going to eat it? Cooking, in a sandwich, in a salad?

For cooking I always use Gruyere, which I would have in a sandwich, too, but for nibbling straight from the fridge it has to be either Luzerner Rahmkäse or Gstaadter Bergkäse.

Had a crash course in cheeses from the British Isles.
Delightful.
We're so used to the same Swiss cheeses, it's quite nice to taste something different. From what I saw, all of the Swiss were both enthusiastic and quite delighted by the selection.

I hear the British cheese import industry is doing well in Zürich.

Cheers,
Nick

After seeing this thread I sneaked off to the fridge while the missus wasn't looking and eat a bit of Gloucester. Yum yum!

PS My sister visited recently.

Had some Genuine Swiss Gruyère in the USA recently, an imperial pound costing a whopping 18 bucks. It wasn't any better than a fake Swiss from across the lake (i.e. Wisconsin), in other words, usable for leaky gutters but so much not for human consumption. But the American "Swiss" sealing compound costs only a fraction of the Gruyère stuff. No wonder Americans go for the cheaper one. It's one of the few things that are affordable without being Made In China.

I usually buy a block of it and slice off a bit at a time and eat it, for cooking I have other cheeses I prefer.