Italy’s latest ruse to protect parmesan
Italian parmesan producers are testing a new way to protect their product from counterfeits: inserting an edible microchip on top of the 90 lb cheese wheels. “We keep fighting with new methods,” said Alberto Pecorari, from the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium, which oversees production. “We won’t give up.” There are more than 3,500 products that have protected status in the EU, including Greek feta cheese and Italian parma ham. It’s a valuable market worth around €80 billion annually, says the WSJ; estimates put the market for imitation products at around the same size. Other protective methods being used by EU food and wine producers include serial numbers, invisible ink, holograms and QR codes – but importantly the microchips, made by Chicago-based p-Chip, can withstand parmesan’s ageing process.