The crème de la crème of cheese makers were celebrated last night at this year's Champions of Cheese awards - but warn they now face an uncertain future.
Feta cheese Photo: 123RF
New Zealand and the European Union have secured a trade deal, estimated to be worth $1.8 billion annually to New Zealand once it's fully rolled out by 2035.
However, the deal includes the ability to restrict cheese names in the future - something artisan cheesemakers have previously expressed grave concerns about.
New Zealand Specialist Cheesemakers Association board member Daniel Shields, of Barry's Bay Cheese's, told Afternoons with Jesse Mulligan although the deal had not banned some popular cheese names which had been threatened, the ban on the name feta would likely hit the local cheese making industry the hardest.
"I think that we got some concessions compared to our initial concerns but there's some important things that did lose out on, the most obvious one is losing the right to use the name feta.
"The other thing is that the Europeans managed to retain the right to add new names in the future that we could be barred from using," Shields said.
Although Barry's Bay Cheese's will not be affected by the feta name ban, the business produces gruyère cheese which is one of the other products names that a naming ban has been discussed for.
"We're a bit lucky... we've been doing gruyère for more than five years so it looks like we'll be able to continue using gruyère but other people who may be new to the game or who wanted to launch a gruyère are going to find that a lot harder."
There have been some suggestions that local cheese makers could replace the feta name with an alternative Te Reo Māori spin, spelling it "Wheta" instead.
However, Shields said the agreement left very little wiggle room around naming, with phrases such as '"feta-style" banned along with any alternative that invoked the word feta.
"I think for New Zealand operators we're going to have to get together as an industry with government and actually create our own naming system and that'll also future proof us against the addition of these names that might arbitrarily be added later."
Shields said the potential for further bans on cheese names left New Zealand cheese makers in "a very uncertain operating environment".
Havarti cheese, which is growing in popularity in New Zealand, is another name which faces the chopping block.
The Havarti name is known to be a product which the Europeans have earmarked for a future ban, Shields said.
"[Havarti] is probably the perfect case study of what we fear most about this ability to bring names on later on... it's one that raises quite a lot of concern given its popularity in New Zealand."
Shields said the government had agreed to the European logic around the limiting the naming of products with regional origins and although the agreement had managed to secure some "carve outs" for New Zealand cheese makers, he felt that the deal was highly conditional and favoured the Europeans.
"The Europeans could easily come back and say 'no sorry, halloumi is ours and it's always been ours and we just sort of forgot to add them at the beginning'."
Shields said it was not all doom and gloom for local cheese producers as he expected New Zealand consumers would make an effort to support the industry.
