Two pillars of French gastronomic heritage in the spotlight. In fact, there is a risk that Roquefort and Camembert will one day disappear from the shelves, reports the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). Much to the dismay of the cheese-loving French, they consumed 27.4 kilograms each in 2020, according to Statista.
In question? Production methods in the agri-food industry.
“To produce cheese in large quantities, manufacturers have selected strains of mushrooms that correspond to the specifications that they have imposed on themselves,” the scientific article details. The cheeses must have good flavor, good visual appearance and the selected mushrooms must “grow quickly on the cheese they intend to colonize.”
An impoverished diversity of microorganisms
This “selection pressure” has depleted the diversity of microorganisms in these cheeses, particularly cheeses from farms and those not protected by a PDO. And it reduced its genetic diversity. Therefore, the mushrooms have become “almost infertile”, which “places a heavy burden on cheese production”.
“The producers did not realize that they had selected a single individual and that it was not sustainable in the long term,” says biologist Tatiana Giraud of the CNRS.
All blue cheeses, including Roquefort, are planted “with the same strain” of mushroom Penicillium roquefortYo. Except the Roquefort AOP which uses several different strains.
“Even the smallest producers are affected,” says Tatiana Giraud, “because if they have been ‘growing’ their own variety of P. roqueforti“Now they tend to purchase their ferments from large spore producers that supply the entire food industry.”
A Camembert “on the verge of extinction”
For Camembert, it’s even worse. The CNRS estimates that this cheese “is on the verge of extinction” because it is “inoculated by a single and the same strain of Penicillium camemberti and this everywhere on Earth.
This variety was chosen in 1950 to give Camembert its white, spongy rind and eliminate any gray, green or orange mold that may appear.
However, today it is “very difficult for all manufacturers in the sector to obtain spores of P. camemberti in sufficient quantity to inoculate their production of Norman cheese”, insists the CNRS.
However, the scientific center presents solutions to remedy this situation. To save Camembert, he suggests using a strain genetically close to P. camemberti: there Penicillium biforme, naturally present in raw milk. However, this would require agreeing to see this cheese change color, texture, or even flavor.
Discovery of a new strain
For Roquefort, the CNRS highlights the discovery of a new strain of Penicillium roqueforti in Termignon bleu, a cheese made by a few small producers only in the French Alps.
“In fact, this could provide producers with the genetic diversity that is so lacking in their ferments,” it is argued.
If the technological modification of a gene is a commonly thought-out method, this does not represent a solution for Tatiana Giraud.
“Genome editing is another form of selection, but what we need today is the diversity provided by sexual reproduction between individuals with different genomes,” he explains. Sexual reproduction until now abandoned by manufacturers in favor of clonal lineage, also responsible for the impoverishment of the strains.
Source: BFM TV
