The Death of a Thousand Cheeses

Turns Out Cartels Aren’t So Great for Innovation

Arguably, the Swiss Cheese Union succeeded in protecting the Swiss cheese industry from uncertain economic times. But in protecting it, the organization also streamlined it, forcing cheesemakers to produce only a few, approved types of cheese.

In theory, Swiss cheesemakers were only allowed to make traditional cheeses that were native to the regions those cheesemakers operated in. But in practice, the restrictions were actually much more severe.

Of the 14 cheeses included on the Swiss Cheese Union’s official list of “name-controlled” cheeses, the Union really only supported the production of three: Emmental, Gruyère, and a hard mountain cheese called Sbrinz. Another hard cheese, Appenzeller, would get some love in the Union’s later years, but for the most part, Swiss cheese production was limited to just those three aforementioned types.

Three types of cheese, in a country that used to make more than a thousand types of cheese

What happened when a cheesemaker rebelled, and made a cheese that wasn’t part of the big three — like the semi-soft Swiss cheese Vacherin Fribourgeois, for example?

“It was banned into the vacuum packed section of mass cheeses in super markets,” according to The Cheese Course. (From a Swiss cheesemaker’s perspective, that’s a major diss, as it indicates to consumers that your cheese is of an inferior quality.)

So non-approved cheeses were still allowed to exist, as it were, but the Cheese Union refused to market them, and refused to give them its official stamp of approval (pictured below).

Only Emmental, Gruyère, and Sbrinz received the stamp.

While the Swiss Cheese Union’s tight constraints stifled innovation and limited the types of Swiss cheeses available to consumers, there was one significant benefit that came as a result: consistency. As author Steven W. Jenkins noted in his 1996 book, Cheese Primer:

“Though the number of varieties of Swiss cheese is relatively small, the cheeses are significant and their place in the world is great. Their recipes and production are strictly regulated, and as a result, one does not find regional quirks or local efforts to reinterpret the national cheesemaking tradition. The strict production controls may hinder originality, but the positive result is that you can count on the consistency of Switzerland’s cheeses.”

A 1985 Chicago Tribune story about visiting the town of Gruyères backs up the notion that those strict regulations helped ensure the consistent quality of Swiss cheese. But I can’t help but think that the story was funded, at least in part, by Cheese Union advertising dollars.

I mean, just read this excerpt:

“Y ou can buy a whole cheese wheel or sections of any size, knowing full well that you are getting the genuine thing, its quality guaranteed by the Swiss government itself and by the alert, expert guardians of the Swiss Cheese Union.”

“Alert, expert guardians” … really?

It’s no secret that the Cheese Union worked closely with advertisers. I mean, they had to work closely with advertisers: They had a lot of government-subsidized cheese to sell.

The U.S. arm of the Swiss Cheese Union’s advertising operations — called the Switzerland Cheese Association — was based in New York City. While originally headquartered on Hudson Street, by the 1960s they had an office on Madison Avenue.

As early as 1930, the Switzerland Cheese Association was producing ads like the one below, which instructed consumers to always check for the official, Swiss Cheese Union stamp of approval when buying Swiss Cheese.

In the 1960s, the message was still the same: Only buy the Cheese Union-approved Swiss cheese. All other cheese is inferior cheese.

And as you can see in the 1964 ad below, the Cheese Union stamp is prominently displayed.

There’s also a cartoon (pirate?) firing a cannon at a piece of cheese, which I’m assuming was the result of several late-night, Scotch-driven brainstorm sessions.

“Gentlemen, how do we convince the American public to buy this genuine, high-quality product, which is steeped in centuries of tradition?”

(silence)

“F*ck it, let’s slap a cartoon pirate on there and call it a day.”

To be sure, the biggest stroke of advertising genius on the part of the Swiss Cheese Union came in the form of a devilishly delicious, childishly simple dish, a dish that has since become a symbol of Switzerland itself: Fondue.

Invented in the Alps, fondue — which is, quite literally, a bowl of melted cheese — didn’t become widely known in Switzerland until the Swiss Cheese Union declared it the national dish in the 1930s. The official recipe calls for one part Emmental and one part Gruyère: a German-Swiss cheese and a French-Swiss cheese melted together, the perfect metaphor for Switzerland’s unique, multicultural heritage.

And of course, Emmental and Gruyère also happened to be the two main cheeses the Cheese Union was trying to generate demand for.

NPR reported on this “fondue conspiracy” in a 2014 episode of their Planet Money podcast, which is definitely worth a listen:

Ultimately, the Swiss Cheese Union made a lot of questionable and unpopular decisions about how Swiss cheese should be regulated and marketed. And it begs the question: How could the cheesemakers allow this to happen? Why didn’t they appeal to the Swiss government and explain how the Cheese Union had gone mad with power?

The answer, of course, is because while under the Cheese Union’s management, almost everyone working in the Swiss cheese industry was making alphorn-loads of cash.