I spent the better part of last week trying to get my French cheese out of FDA purgatory, and realizing that there was nothing I could do. So I actually spent a good deal of time sending email to our sales people telling them that really, we would have cheese soon, and that it would be here any moment now. In truth I had no idea. I just had to keep them happy.
I sent the first volley out on Monday.
And then on Tuesday, then Wednesday, and again Thursday. Always the same email: Hang tight, the cheese will be here soon.
Every day I called my broker. Where is it? Actually, I knew the answer to that question. The cheese is in the bonded warehouse, a privately owned warehouse licensed by the US Customs office to hold imported goods until they clear customs and the FDA . The cheese is sitting in a large pallet under some industrial fan, dying a little more every minute. The blues are weeping, the little French goat cheeses, packed loosely in wooden crates, are drying, and the rinds on the larger tomes are cracking. The cheese has already spent two weeks in a French warehouse, two more weeks in a container on a ship, and now languishes in a warehouse. My broker tells me that the FDA has become unusually zealous in their pursuit of illegal French cheeses.
My pallet is a hostage of their campaign against imports.
According to my broker, every time a store posts a sign boasting they have raw milk camembert or brie, or some cheesemonger tells Gourmet, Saveur, or the New York Times that they have raw goat milk cheeses, that’s like giving the FDA a black eye. So they respond by making it harder to bring anything in. They won’t let us file our customs entry papers electronically with French Cheese – they actually make us give them paper copies of the import files. And it is only getting worse.
He adds, “They are usually pretty ineffective at stopping illegal importers, who misrepresent their products on their customs entries. If they actually hired someone from the industry, maybe then they would be able to stem the flow. In the meantime they are hurting everyone.”
The FDA’s zeal does seem to be misplaced. The majority of the cheeses that are put on ‘hold’, a status given to products awaiting FDA approval, pending the results of lab tests, are from France. When a product comes in to the US, it needs to pass through customs and the FDA. Customs simply wants its cut of the value of the goods – a flat fee for processing paperwork, and a percentage of the total value of the invoice, based on the type of product imported. Cheddar type cheese, blue cheeses, and a number of cows milk cheeses are taxed at a higher rate than sheep’s milk cheeses, which are not taxed at all. Customs is never a problem. The FDA always is.
The FDA’s job is to enforce the food laws of the US government. Ostensibly the laws were designed to protect public health, but more and more they seem to be used to enforce political agendas and protect U.S. markets. The Roquefort producers, in particular, have suffered from the trade barriers imposed by the US government in retaliation for a ban on US beef. They survive simply because the French government is willing to subsidize their production through promotion. The milk producers, who receive government subsidies, are then willing to sell at half-price to subsidize the cheese producers
Some of the Roquefort companies are owned by even bigger French dairy companies who can afford to keep them alive. Lactalis for example, owns the largest Roquefort producer, Societe. When the 100% tariff on Roquefort was first enacted in 1999, prices doubled overnight. Sales dropped, and the producers of Roquefort were nearly forced out of business. The US generally does not have such an impact on the livelihoods of cheese producers, but the U.S. was the third largest market for Roquefort. The producers are, thankfully, still alive and subsidies have kept Roquefort prices at a reasonable level.
In 2000 the FDA became more vigorous in pursuit of importers who were actively bringing contraband cheeses into the U.S. Entire shipments were seized and destroyed. The U.S. and French governments, eager to ease the tensions between the two countries, worked together to stem the flow of ‘illegal’ French products into the U.S. Under the guise of stopping contaminated goods from reaching U.S. shores, the French government created a list of producers and plants that were allowed to be exported to the U.S. The process was time consuming and excluded all but the largest producers and the entrepreneurs and affineurs willing to assist smaller producers with the qualification and registration process. Clever consolidators on the French side quickly learned how to disguise raw milk products by misstating plant origins or product type. A steady stream of illegal products continued to make their way into the US. The quantities were never large, and usually were pre-ordered by retailers who knew exactly who carried the most exotic – and illegal – cheese. Callude Crabbetu, a cheese made from raw goat’s milk and aged in the 4th stomach of a baby goat received quite a bit of publicity in the New York Times and on CNN when a prominent New York restaurant began featuring on its menu for $20 an ounce. This type of flagrant flouting of the law inevitably attracts the FDA, who may not be able to stop the current sale, but can see to it that future shipments of Callu de Crabbetu never make it to U.S. shores.
In 2002 the FDA took a step toward making it almost impossible to bring any products into the U.S. without the FDA’s approval. The Bioterrorism act of 2002 was created to protect U.S. food supplies from intentional contamination by terrorists. An international conspiracy of cheese contaminators/poisoners seems unlikely, but nonetheless the law passed. Essentially the law requires anyone wishing to export products to the U.S. to register with the U.S. government. Additionally, the producer must have a U.S. proxy to act as their domestic contact should there be an outbreak associated with their product. Each producer to register with the FDA is granted a unique ID number, to be used on every customs document. Products arriving in the U.S. without an ID number will be destroyed. All importers are required to register and to notify Customs of incoming shipments within a certain period of time. Any shipment arriving without prior notice may be destroyed.
On December 12, 2003 the law went into effect. In the month leading up to the enactment of the law, importers and producers scrambled to register. The first four months would be a trial period. The FDA would not be seizing and destroying product, but could still hold it indefinitely. Opportunistic companies such as FDA Registrar Corp and FoodAgent.com sprang up overnight to assist – and exploit – overseas producers unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the process.
The changes were immediate. The few farmhouse French goat cheeses that had been trickling into the U.S. suddenly disappeared. Cheeses such as Rouelle Cendree from the Midi- Pyrenees and Truffe de Valensole, Tomme de Quarte Reines, and Roves des Garrigues from Provence disappeared. A number of small French farmers , like Chabot of Provence, refused to register with the FDA, seeing registration as an extension of US cultural and political imperialism. Some people claimed that the small raw milk cheese producers just couldn’t get approval from the FDA even if they did age their cheese over 60 days (the FDA requirement for unpasteurized cheeses).
Without an FDA ID number, even the wiliest of importers couldn’t get products in without the possibility of incuring much greater consequences . No one wanted to have her company under government scrutiny. Fines were one thing, but the FDA could very effectively destroy a company not in compliance with the new law. At the same time, the FDA’s new fiscal year began. Agents went out into the field with a the same mandate, but renewed zeal: stop illegal cheeses, enforce the law.
Like never before, the FDA demanded paperwork, held up shipments, and inspected incoming product. Perfectly legal cheese – pasteurized, aged over 60 days, etc, was put on hold and ‘sampled’ –taken by the FDA for testing at a lab for presence of listeria or other undesirable bacteria. Laws had already forced producers of AOC goat cheeses to make US versions – new names, pasteurized, no flavor. Selles sur cher became Sel Rondin. Crottin Chavignol became Crottin Champcol. What next?
Sampling everything, of course. Holding up release of air and boat shipments of cheese. Slowing down the process of introducing new products to the US.
All of this is an oversimplification, of course. There are twists and turns to this story, unforeseen complications and manipulations. A strong Euro has priced many cheeses out of the market, or has significantly diminished market share for once popular products. But the most important result is that small producers in France cannot compete and it has become harder and harder to find excellent cheese, both here and in France. Economically, it doesn’t make sense to be a small producer anymore.
A visit to a specialty store almost instantly confirms this. Where are the Crottin Chavignol? How does that Morbier taste? Where are the treasures? You have to look outside of the French section to find them. Most of the French cheeses in specialty stores and on restaurant menus are large production industrial cheeses. Yes, there are a few good ones left, but you really need to look hard to find them.
I will continue to purchase French cheese, despite the shrinking selection, draconian laws, and increasing prices (in the last 4 months alone the price rose by 20%). I will continue to explain to the sales people at my company that there is nothing I can do to expedite delivery, that the FDA will do what they will in the time they wish to do it.
Thursday afternoon my delivery was finally released. By Friday morning it was moving out the door. This has been the longest I have waited for a delivery. I hope this isn’t a portent of things to come.
--Wade Marchand is a cheese importer in Washington D.C.