Get to know your PDOs

Here, James Grant looks at Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status.

There has been much conversation about PDO cheese recently, but what is a PDO? Truth is, most people aren’t sure. In the UK, there are 18 cheeses with protected status, including Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), which shows that a product originates from a specific place, and Protected Geographical Indication, which identifies a certain quality related to the geographical origin, but allows a little more flexibility.

They both exist to help protect the honour of regional produce, aimed at safeguarding the traditions and agricultural methods of cheesemaking in that specific area. For example, cheesemakers falling outside of the Blue Stilton PDO region (Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire), cannot call their cheese Stilton, even if it’s made to the same recipe.

Are PDOs always a good thing? This is somewhat controversial and quite the topic right now. For real artisan cheesemakers, the requirement to spend thousands of pounds to protect the regionality and originality of your own cheese seems unfair; especially when considering the huge overheads of running a farm and dairy.

Take cheesemaker, Tom Calver, who decided against renewing West Country Farmhouse Cheddar PDO status for his awesome Westcombe Cheddar, due to the cost. In his opinion, customers are able to better understand his cheese based on tasting it and hearing the story that our cheesemongers should provide.

There is also a risk of protected status working against smaller producers in some regions. If a massive dairy company has an effective monopoly on the milk supply in that area, then artisan cheesemakers can find themselves unable to access the local milk required to qualify for the badge.

We have many fewer protected cheeses in the UK than in France or Italy, countries where the system has worked well to support artisan cheese for many years. These examples on the continent highlight a big opportunity for the powers that be here, to make the PDO and PGI systems work harder and better for smaller cheesemakers, so we hope to see some of these challenges being addressed for the benefit of real cheese in the UK.