Is cheese without milk cheese?
Credit: Carol Yepes/ Getty Images Contributor
One of the oldest cheesemakers in the world may have its French founders turning in their graves after announcing plans to produce vegan fromages devoid of dairy products because they are better for the planet.
Paris-based Bel group, founded in 1865 by Jules Bel, has been producing The Laughing Cow since 1921 and has since added to its list the likes of Kiri, Babybel and Boursin.
Until now, these have been made with the milk of dairy cows in France and among the 28 countries around the world where it makes its processed and semi-processed cheeses, often packaged in individual portions.
However, starting from this month, Bel, whose annual revenues are €3.4 billion, will roll out “100 per cent plant-based” Boursin made not from traditional cow’s milk but a mixture of coconut and rapeseed oil.
Boursin has been a household name in France since 1957, when François Boursin, a cheese maker from Normandy, commercialised his party dish of fromage frais with garlic and fine herbs.
CEO Antoine Fiévet, whose family own the Bel group, said the decision was part of a drive to cut its carbon footprint at a time when consumers are demanding companies “reduce animal products in favour of plant-based ones”.
“We know that animal protein produces a lot of CO2,” he told AFP. “So we are greening our product ranges”.
The American market will be the first to test the vegetable fat version this month.
Next stop the UK, the US, Canada and Germany, which will see a vegan blend of the Laughing Cow in January in the hope of cashing in on the growing flexitarian trend for healthy and sustainable food.
Cheese group Bel wants to branch out to plant-based cheeses to reduce the carbon footprint and cater to flexitarians
Credit: PASCAL ROSSIGNOL /Reuters
It intends to roll out a vegan version of Mini Babybel within a year, as well as a totally different vegan brand “in the coming months”.
The company insists plant-based cheeses will also translate into cheaper products in poorer countries, notably Africa.
But the prospect of producing cheese without a hint of milk has appalled purists in France, home to at least 1,000 famous names from Beaufort to Roquefort.
Véronique Richez-Lerouge, president of the Association Fromages de Terroirs group and staunch defender of traditionally-made unpasteurised cheese, called it a “misleading and dangerous” marketing “gizmo” and yet another “step towards the negation of what constitutes cheese”.
“You can’t call something that is made without any derivative of milk cheese by law in Europe. As soon as there is no milk in it, it’s no longer cheese,” she told the Telegraph.
“They claim that cheese from dairy products is more environmentally friendly but that’s not necessarily the case given that coconut fat, say, comes from far away.”
“It’s also quite dangerous for children as bought by mothers who don’t realise such products are virtually all fat and devoid of protein.”
Bel, which has set no date for releasing such vegan cheese in France, said it had no intention of phasing out dairy-based cheese or cutting the two billion litres of milk it collects from 2,500 dairy producers around the world.
It merely wished to “re-balance” its range to end up with half dairy and half plant-based cheese to “build the best of both worlds”.
Some 10 million portions of cheeses manufactured by the Bel Group are consumed everyday. A recent report for the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy in the US found that the 13 biggest dairy companies produce almost the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as the whole of the UK.
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