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They do it with meat glue.
How profitable is cheap cheese? At first glance, we save more than double, if instead of the stand with the established brands with prices of 12-13 BGN / kg we take bulk packages for 6-7 BGN. But is our story correct?
True white cheese in brine will soon receive protection similar to that of the Greek “Feta” in Europe.
“Obviously, Bulgarians are the richest people in the world, after we buy cheap cheese of 7 BGN / kg, which has a high water content of more than 70%. This means that we pay 700 grams of water for 7 BGN, or a liter costs BGN 10 ”, said the director of the Bulgarian Dairy Producers Association, Dimitar Zorov. According to him
Inspectors will monitor hygiene compliance when selling ice cream outdoors.
less than 20% of
the cheese is in our country
in the original
technology
for white cheese in brine and is made from 7 liters of raw milk with up to 54% water content, according to BDS.
“The downside is that the cheese shops that produce the authentic classic cheese are staying less and less, because they are not competitive in the vomit tones of the hydrated cheese,” said Zorov. He also gave an example of the mistake made by many consumers, who say that it is better to have more water in cheese than in a palm tree.
“Cheese with more than 62% water cannot mature, it has practically no nutritional value and its proteins are not completely absorbed by the body. The enzymes used to retain this enormous amount of water are
potentially
toxic,
Think Zorov. According to a study by the Active Consumers Association last week, 26 of the 30 analyzed samples of cheap cheese below BGN 10 / kg have a high water content greater than 62%. That is why they presented a proposal to the Ministry of Agriculture to change the ordinance on imitation products and consider cheese with a lot of water to be false and sell it in a separate stand, such as when palm oil is used. The “active consumers” also want to prohibit the sale of cheese with more than 70% water.
People don’t realize that cheese with 62% water content instead of 54%, according to BDS, means not just an 8% increase in water, but twice as much, Zorov said. The reason is that you have to recalculate it according to the dry matter and then it turns out that the added water is 15 percent more.
insurance
the water moves
The palm,
states Bogomil Nikolov from Active Users. In fact, it can be assumed that the crown crisis also affected cheese. Due to difficult logistics and decreased production in Malaysia, the price of palm oil has risen in international markets and it is no longer profitable to replace milk. Its price has reached 1,300 euros / t, which is more than 100 euros more in the last month. In addition, consumers became more aware of the harms of hydrogenated vegetable fats and stopped buying products that claimed to have a palm tree.
“However, native farmers have quickly switched to technologies that bring even higher returns at lower cost. They just replaced the palm tree with water,” thinks Nikolov. In the study of the association “Active Consumers” there are even striking cases of
sold in Ruse
cheese with
77% water
For so much water to be retained, there must be additives to absorb it, says Bogomil Nikolov. Transglutaminase was the most used. It is an enzyme known as “glue” for meat, but its use is banned in the EU dairy sector. But some of the native mandrakes also use it so that it can cross-link proteins. Transglutaminase binds individual protein chains. In this way the product becomes mechanically stronger and retains more water without disintegrating. At the same time, transglutaminase preserves the cheese, preventing traditional enzymes (proteases and lactic acid bacteria) from breaking down the casein in milk, so it cannot be absorbed by the body. In addition to transglutaminase, carrageenan or E-470 is used. It is extracted from red algae and is known as a superabsorbent additive, which is also used in the ice cream and confectionery industries. It can hold up to 120 times more water than its weight, or 4 grams absorb half a liter.
Even the farmers who make hydrated cheese don’t know exactly what additives they add, says Sergei Ivanov of the Center for Food Biology. They bought ready-to-use mixes that promised
raising by 10-20%
in performance
of cheese
They also contained gelling agents such as guar gum, xanthan gum, chemically modified starches, and others.
After the publication of the study, there was criticism why only unknown brands with a price below BGN 9 / kg were tested, and not popular manufacturers. The mandrakes themselves admit that violations can also be found in them.
“There are more than 200 dairies in Bulgaria, we don’t have the opportunity to explore them all. We chose cheap cheeses below BGN 10 / kg because we expected more infractions. It is clear that there is no way to make quality cheese for BGN 5-6 / kg “Nikolov explained. According to him, it is not logical to have violations with more expensive and branded cheeses, because these companies trust their good name and if they commit they will lose the market.
If a person wonders if it is possible to make cheese with 7 liters of milk for BGN 5-6, he will answer himself if it is of good quality, Nikolov commented. Currently, the purchase price of raw milk, which meets all hygiene requirements, is 72-75 st./l. Or only for the raw material the costs are BGN 5-5.25 At least another BGN 2 are the other production costs such as electricity, labor, sourdough, packaging, labels. With 20% VAT, the price reaches a minimum of BGN 8.40 / kg. This is followed by around BGN 3 for transport costs and a 30% commercial discount for chains. Therefore, quality cheese is offered on the shelves at BGN 13-14 / kg.
In fact, people have tried to make cheese cheaper with more water for years, but not on this scale. It is the use of the palm tree that was started for this purpose, because it also retains water. About 10 years ago, the so-called cheese shaker. And instead of 7 liters of raw milk, 4-5 liters were added, which is done by increasing the heat treatment of the milk, in order to use whey proteins with added acid, usually limontuzu. But such cheese is made with about 60% water, you can no longer do without the use of special enzymes or gelling agents.
It is more profitable
consumers
to buy
cottage cheese,
than cheese with 77% water, milk processors say. The actual price of this seemingly cheap cheese at the stall is actually the same as that of the expensive 12-13 BGN / kg cheeses, compared to the dry matter of the products. As a rule, white cheese in cow’s milk brine should mature for 45 days, and if it is sheep, 2 months.
Members of the branch point to the example of Greece’s neighbors who guard against counterfeiting of their traditional feta cheese. The Athens authorities recently passed a law with harsh penalties of three years in prison and a fine of 600,000 euros for the first offense for those who sell a non-technological product, such as imported milk.
Late 2020, white
brine with European protection
By the end of the year, we expect brined white cheese to receive European protection similar to Greek “feta”. 8-9 dairies, united in “traditional Bulgarian dairy products”, have prepared the documents and they have already been submitted to the Ministry of Agriculture. The inspections in the companies have passed, now the ministry is about to send the file to the EC, said Dimitar Zorov, who is also president of the association. He explicitly clarified that after the successful defense in Brussels, each dairy will be able to produce white cheese in brine, if it follows the technology, without paying fees to the association.
Protection is required for all types of brined Bulgarian white cheese, from cow, goat, sheep and buffalo milk.
Along with the cheese is the registration of Bulgarian yogurt as a traditional product, Zorov explained. He is about to start with the yellow cheese, but it proved more difficult for him to collect historical data in the past. Furthermore, Romanians and Hungarians are expected to oppose the defense because they also made yellow cheese-like products.
They are looking for Escherichia
cars in ice cream scoops
Every year in summer, Escherichia coli bacteria are found in scoops of bulk ice cream. This is due to the poor hygiene of the vendors. Most of the time, only a spoon is used to scoop out the ice cream, which is in the water in the open air.
Due to the signals sent, additional inspections will be conducted at sites that offer ice cream, the food agency announced. Inspectors from the Food Control Department of all regional food safety directorates carry out inspections outside the planned official control to verify compliance with the rules to offer ice cream without prepackaged to the end user, from carts, outdoor stalls, mobile sites.
The objective of emergency control is to monitor compliance with hygiene measures: the device for pouring ice cream must be separated for each type of ice cream and stored in conditions that prevent secondary contamination with pathogens (bacteria and viruses) and allergens, explained the BFSA.
It is also checked whether the establishments offer complete food information to consumers for the presence of substances or products that cause allergies and intolerances. During inspections, inspectors will take samples for laboratory testing.
Since the beginning of 2020, 161 inspections have been carried out in the production companies under official control and one under signal. Enterobacteriaceae were found in 3 samples in the territory of RFSD Sofia-city, RFSD-Dobrich and RFSD-Burgas. All non-conforming quantities were destroyed: 68 kg of ice cream.
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