Why on earth do we have all those types of cheese on the shelves?
Supermarkets often want to make things as easy as possible for us, and since I can be quite a lazy kitchen queen, I can certainly appreciate that. Because yes, I’m the kind of person who actually buys pre-chopped onions, bell peppers or other vegetables. It saves me the trouble of chopping them, even though you’re done within two minutes. And yes, I know it’s much more expensive proportionally, but sometimes I love simply choosing convenience.
But they’ve completely gone overboard at the supermarket, making things counterproductive — they want to make things so easy for us that I end up getting completely confused.
There’s far too much choice when it comes to cheese
Because when I’m standing in front of the cheese section, specifically the grated cheese, I seriously get a complete error. Is this actually necessary? And when will it stop? Apparently, Albert Heijn thinks it’s necessary to offer a separate type of cheese for every dish, which means they currently have the following in their range: Pizza cheese, Stamppot cheese, Pasta cheese, Pancake cheese and Tex-Mex Cheese. No, this isn’t a joke, and yes, it’s all just grated cheese.
Why on earth do we need this?! I can still understand the Tex-Mex one — because it’s clearly spicier (and a different colour) than the other types of cheese. But cheese for pancakes?! What’s wrong with simply putting a slice of cheese on top? Especially when you look at the ingredients: 79 percent processed cheese 45+ and 19 percent melted cheese 45+ (the remaining 2 percent remains a mystery). So both are varieties of 45+ cheese that has been melted. Hey, I have an idea: just buy 45+ cheese?!
You can also buy that grated and still pay less: it costs €2.59 for 200 grams, while the pancake cheese costs €2.29 for 150 grams. Hmmm…
Stamppot cheese is the biggest rip-off
But there’s always a winner: the cheese specifically intended for stamppot. They’re described as ‘handy little cheese cubes specially made for mixing into stamppot’, but they consist of 100 percent 45+ cheese. And you pay €15.93 per kilo for them. Meanwhile, the grated 45+ cheese costs €12.95 per kilo — so that’s a three-euro difference, and for what?! Cheese in a slightly different shape — which is of no use anyway, because it will melt in the end regardless.
The only ones that may stay, in my opinion, are the pasta cheese (which is a mix of Maasdammer and mature cheese), the pizza cheese (a mix of mozzarella, young Gouda and Regato) and, fine, the Tex-Mex cheese. But even those seem questionable to me; isn’t it all completely unnecessary? And what are we supposed to use the ‘regular’ (or spicy variety) grated cheese for?! Because apparently we can’t use it for pancakes, pasta, pizza or tacos — so what occasion are they intended for?!
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