Cyprus farmers say new EU recognition will make halloumi too expensive to produce

Farmers in Cyprus say the country has shot itself in the foot by securing special EU recognition for its distinctively squeaky halloumi cheese.

The hugely popular cheese will be tossed on countless British barbeques this Easter weekend but its official status has been the subject of tortured political and economic wrangling for years.

Known as “squeaky cheese” for the noise it makes when bitten into, the rubbery cheese is hugely important to the Cypriot economy, with Britain the biggest market, buying around 40 per cent of exports.

The granting by Brussels of special Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status was hailed by Cypriot politicians this week as a triumph, the culmination of a campaign that took seven years.

They said it would protect halloumi from imitation products made in other countries, safeguarding a market worth €224 million.

“A milestone day for halloumi and our country,” Nicos Anastasiades, the president of Cyprus, wrote on Twitter. “A shield of protection is now in place.”

Stella Kyriakides, the EU’s commissioner for health and food safety, who is herself Cypriot, hailed the decision as a “historic achievement for Cyprus to protect its national product.”

The new status means that only cheese made in Cyprus according to special conditions can now be called halloumi – or hellim if it is from the Turkish-speaking north of the island.

It is similar to the recognition accorded to products such as Gorgonzola cheese from Italy and Kalamata olives from Greece.

But farmers say the stipulations that go with the recognition are so stringent that they will reduce the amount of cheese they can produce.

They are objecting in particular to the requirement that “authentic” halloumi must now contain at least 51 per cent sheep or goat’s milk.

They say there is a shortage of milk from goats and sheep on the island, while huge quantities of the cow’s milk that was used in the past will now go unused.

“We’re celebrating the registration of a product that we will not be able to produce,” Nikos Papkyriakou, of the Pan Cyprian Organisation of Cattle Breeders, told the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation.

He had previously described the bid for PDO status as “suicidal” for the halloumi industry.

When the matter was still under discussion with Brussels, Giorgos Petrou, the president of the Cyprus Dairy Producers Association, told The Telegraph that the new designation would be “a disaster for halloumi makers”.

He said it would cut exports by 60 per cent “because there will be a lot less halloumi being produced.”

This week he said he was concerned that there would be a significant surplus of cow’s milk, “which we will not know what to do with it”.

His son, Michael Petrou, who is the manager of their dairy operation, was less pessimistic. “The recognition of halloumi will present some difficulties to begin with and there may be reduced production. Certainly there will be much less demand for cow’s milk. It’s going to require a lot of effort and investment to increase the production of goat and milk.

“But overall I think PDO status is a good thing for halloumi and for Cyprus. It will protect us from our many competitors,” he told The Telegraph.

Cheese makers in the Turkish north of the island were also unhappy. “This is very bad for north and south producers,” Mahmut Erden, the owner of a cheese factory, told AFP.

Variations on the cheese, such as flavoured halloumi and circular halloumi ‘burgers’, will not be allowed to retain the name halloumi and will face stiff competition from cheaper equivalents made in other countries, he said. Cheesemakers plan to stage a protest against the IPO move on Monday.

But Cyprus’s minister for agriculture defended the PDO designation, saying it was key to defending the island’s cheese from foreign competitors.

Costas Kadis said that Cyprus is involved in around 80 court cases against foreign producers who “unlawfully” use the halloumi name to market their cheese.

Panicos Chambas, the head of a farmers’ union, also welcomed the designation, saying it would give a guarantee of quality to consumers and add value to halloumi. He said producers’ concerns were understandable but unfounded.

Halloumi is known as “white gold” to Cypriots because it is the country’s second-biggest export behind medicines.

Between 2017-19, halloumi exports rose by 43% to more than 33,000 tons. After Britain, the next biggest markets are Sweden, Germany and Greece.

The EU designation will not affect halloumi exports to Britain, where the cheese is already covered by a separate trademark arrangement.

The trademark means that British producers cannot market any of their cheese as halloumi.