Credit: DVisions – stock.adobe.com
In a move that blends ancient culinary tradition with 21st-century innovation, Italian cheesemakers have turned to technology for a solution to their counterfeiting woes, by embedding edible microchips into their 40kg cheese wheels.
Parmigiano Reggiano, the iconic Italian cheese known to most of us as Parmesan, carries a rich history that can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Known globally for its distinct taste and texture, Parmigiano Reggiano was awarded the prestigious protected designation of origin (PDO) status in 1996 to further its authenticity and protect its provenance. This designation ensures that products are genuinely local and have been produced, processed, and prepared in a specific region using traditional methods. In Europe, only Parmigiano Reggiano can be legally called Parmesan.
Such accolades, while enhancing the cheese's reputation, has also, unfortunately, led to it becoming one of the most counterfeited cheeses in the world.
The Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium (PRC) estimates annual global sales of counterfeit Parmesan to be $2 billion annually. This figure is strikingly close to the 2022 sales of the genuine product, which reached a high of €2.9 billion.
Before introducing microchips, cheesemakers relied on a different method to verify authenticity. Each cheese wheel carried a casein label displaying a unique alphanumeric code. This code, reminiscent of an ID card, created a distinctive dot pattern around the cheese wheel and included the month and year of production. Although innovative, this method was not fool-proof and was consequently outwitted by persistent counterfeit operations.
Recognising the gravity of this situation, the PRC, responsible for overseeing the production of this esteemed cheese, decided to adopt micro-transponders. These tiny chips, hardly more significant than a grain of salt, are placed within a QR code label, which is, in turn, embedded into the rind of wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano, so that they become one with the cheese. Designed to be food safe as well as durable, the chips serve a multifaceted purpose: they ensure consumers are getting an authentic product and provide producers with a digital tool to trace the cheese's journey from production to sales, providing insights into its distribution and consumption.
This new way of tracing the cheese came about through a partnership between the PRC, p-Chip and Dutch/French cheesemark producers Kaasmerk Matec.
Guaranteeing food authenticity is big business in the European Union, and more than 3,500 EU products have received protected status in addition to Italy’s Parmigiano, including Greek feta cheese, French Champagne, and Italian Parma raw ham. The market is worth almost €80 billion annually, according to an EU study published in 2020.
By opting for robust, modern technology to thwart counterfeiting, the PRC has not only safeguarded its own heritage, but paved the way for other products of geographical significance to embrace similar methods.
