This surprising cheese saw the biggest increase in popularity in France in 2020 (and it isn’t French)
I don’t think we’re going out on a limb by saying that the French are generally pretty proud of their own gastronomy and everything their country has to offer in terms of, say, wine and cheese, right? Un peu de chauvinisme is hardly foreign to them, after all (and quite often justified, hello Beaujolais with Comté). And that’s why we were rather surprised to discover which cheese saw the biggest increase in sales there last year…
Because although it’s still incredibly sad that cheesemakers worldwide (as well as vegetable growers, and all kinds of producers) could no longer, or barely, sell their goods to the hospitality industry, everyone naturally started cooking and eating at home like crazy. And the French, too, answered the call to eat more cheese to support cheesemakers. Especially… mozzarella. Huh?
Comfort in cheese
The French food website Les Marchés reports that 2020 was an exceptional year for fromage, and that at-home cheese consumption broke all records. However, these impressive figures do not include the losses resulting from the hospitality lockdowns. But French cheeses for home consumption sold significantly better; sales of Comté rose by 8.2%, raclette cheeses by 12.2%, and Roquefort by 5.4%. According to the website, this could be down to the comfort and “consolation that are synonymous with cheese, especially when that cheese is melted.”
Raclettes incredibly popular
That probably also explains why sales of raclette appliances in France rose by 300% in 2020! The British newspaper The Guardian wrote about this, and the French newspaper Le Figaro reported in November that some French people were worried about a raclette cheese shortage.
Looking over the fence
And that exact craving for melted cheese could also be behind the whopping growth figures for the decidedly very Italian mozzarella: 21.2%. It’s entirely possible that, faced with a shortage of raclette cheese, the French started holding mozzarella balls under the heating element instead. They melt the cheeses! Or they started baking pizzas en masse. Or making delicious Italian sandwiches and stuffing themselves with Caprese salads. Either way, we wholeheartedly applaud this culinary fraternization…
Also read:
- 5 surprising facts about blue cheese
- Handy list: which cheeses you can eat when you’re pregnant
- 7 hilarious things you’ll want if you really love cheese
Sources: Food and Wine, Les Marchés
