Camembert row: French rage at EU plan to ban wooden box packaging producers claim will impact cheese

WAIT, WHAT?!
A new EU recycling rule which could see the traditional round wooden boxes used replaced with plastic.

Sky News
Wed, 22 November 2023


French cheesemakers are furious about a new EU recycling rule which could see the traditional round wooden boxes used to encase Camembert cheese replaced with plastic.

The European Parliament is set to vote on the proposed new regulation which will state that by 2030 all food packaging must be recyclable.

Jean-Paul Garraud, a member of the European Parliament for France's far-right Rassemblement National, said: "It is a matter of common sense. Don't touch our Camemberts!"

Some French producers fear the language of the proposal would mean the cheese - which takes its name from a village in Normandy and dates back to the 18th century - would no longer be encased in wooden boxes.

"Plastic heats up the cheese, and alters the product over the long term," one producer told French broadcaster BFM TV.

The box packaging represents 2,000 jobs in France and 45 firms would be affected, Claire Lacroix, chief executive of the Lacroix Group which manufacturers 200 million boxes per year, told TF1info.

Many people have protested against the proposal, calling it a matter of national pride for France.

French MEP Laurence Sailliet said: "Our French cheeses are loved all over the world. But who can imagine a Camembert or a Mont d'Or without its wooden strapping? Packaging them in plastic would be a gustatory and environmental aberration.

"Europe must know how to protect the environment, but never to the detriment of the specific characteristics of its member states," she added.

Even if the boxes are not banned under the rules, they would be subject to new recycling and reuse regulations that could make them costly.

Stephanie Yon-Courtin, an MEP originally from Normandy, said wooden boxes used to package cheeses like Camembert don't have a dedicated recycling circuit because it would be too costly.

She is part of the centrist Renew Europe group in parliament which has tabled an amendment to exempt wooden packaging from the proposed recycling regulations.

Virginijus Sinkevicius, European commissioner for the environment, said on Tuesday the EU would make sure the raw-milk specialised non-industrial Camemberts - those that have a controlled designation of origin - will be exempt from any regulation.

The vote on Wednesday will include such an exemption.

"Indeed, in the EU, certain food packaging made of wood, textiles, ceramics are placed on the market in very small quantities, and many of them protected by the food quality legislation," he said.

"Such packaging may have difficulties to be recycled at scale and is open for specific exemptions."