Factories in the Welsh town stopped making the crumbly, white cheese in 1995 following concerns over new European legislation that made it illegal to take delivery of unpasteurised milk in metal churns.
Assuming that that reason is correct. Why on Earth would anyone institute a form of government that tried to rule 500 million people in that level of detail? Well, other than giving every Fat Contollerish anal retentive something to do with their lives?
How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?
The late Christopher Booker discovered that the real problem was overzealous British govt officials gold plating EU rules.
A lot of the more nonsensical or contradictory regulations stem from this fact.
My take on this has always been coloured by a brief stint in the MoD. I had always assumed that Armed Forces personnel were a bit… well dim and that their training was excellent. I was not prepared for what a bunch of fuckwits the civil servants were.
Because The European Parliament does not run the EU, the bureaucrats do. Lots of detailed laws are necessary to occupy the MEP’s in Parliament who’s only function is to pick over the fine detail of the wording of the rules created by the bureaucrats. This keeps them busy and gives the illusion that the democratically MEP’s have some involvement in running the EU.
@Ottokring: a brief stint in the MoD. … I was not prepared for what a bunch of fuckwits the civil servants were.
A sentence from an MoD pen pusher that has stuck with me since my stint there ~50 years ago:
“This is an MoD base, you’re not allowed to have guns here!”
“Factories” seems a bit hyperbolic. As far as I remember, only a single person made Caerphilly Cheese, as opposed to Caerphilly-style cheese.
In order to make the cheese. she had to get milk from the single farm in Caerphilly Basin that would allow the cheese to conform to the Geographical Indication rules. I believe in 1995, he stopped selling unpasteurized milk.
Those rules coming from where?
Were there any changes in food standards rules or legislation around that time, I wonder?
@BiW
The rules came from the EU I believe. The single farm was the only farm within the basin, not the only farm allowed to sell milk for the cheese. What I’d written before could be read that way. There were (still are?) farms nearby but weren’t completely within Caerphilly Basin.
Not sure if there were any changes. It was a long time ago an you can still buy “green top” milk, ie raw milk, in some places in England and wales.
Proper camembert is unpasteurised, still sold. Some French supermarkets won’t sell it, for fear of brucellosis, but it’s not illegal.
How can you be expected to govern a country that has 246 kinds of cheese?
If you’re referring to France, you’re not even close mate. Order of magnitude out.
One of my favourites is Mont du Cats. That’s the produce of ten cows on a Flanders hill.
Which is probably why they regulate.
The UK, at some point, pretty well gave up on cheese in favour of mousetrap. Continentals, in some countries at least, rather like their local cheeses. So they tend to be consumed locally. OK, there’s Presidente. But who in their right mind eats that? Now the locals may be quite comfortable that the unique flavour of their local fromage is due to it being matured in otter bladders. And everybody eats it, knows it is. For les forriners, they didn’t want all this regulation bollox. But the EU has to cope with a country like the UK. Who’s consumers will accept no personal responsibility for what they eat. Like a lot of things, they’re accustomed to having it done for them. So who do you think the regulations are for?
As a general observation, It’s Brits who like regulation & control. You’re the ones, every road has a yellow line down it if not two. Even if it’s 5 cars wide in the middle of nowhere. France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, they have parking controls where parking is a problem. Other then that, park where you like. You’re the ones with CCTV every 50 yards. Don’t think there’s a single street camera in this town. You’ve got all this, so you must like it. Or why do you vote for it?
I think it boils down to there being two types of Brit.
The first likes nothing more than to micromanage the lives of everyone else. The more regulation, the better – it doesn’t matter if it’s good regulation, just feel the width of the forms of checklists! For them, the day doesn’t get any better than when they’re handing out fixed penalty notices for some minor infraction of a subclause of a regulation that no-one else has heard of.
The second doesn’t give a shit, so long as there’s food on the table, beer in the barrel and something amusing on the idiotbox.
The second type vastly outnumbers the first, but as they don’t give a shit the first type vote each other onto the local council, or hire their like-minded friends to work for the local council, or quango or whatever.
If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal. A 60s slogan that is 10x more accurate and relevant today.
BiS
To be fair lines are painted on the road ‘cos people ignore the signs.
Does anyone enforce the yellow lines? In my town, those are the roads that everyone parks on. Meanwhile the carparks are empty
According to the story, the cheese production is being re-started using pasteurised milk so, unless there was more to it than we are being told, the EU regulations are irrelevant.
@Bloke in Wales
Yes, and guess which lot benefits from “take back control”.
Simple. We all do.
“Not sure if there were any changes. It was a long time ago an you can still buy “green top” milk, ie raw milk, in some places in England and wales.”
I’ve a feeling that there was a blanket ban on selling unpasteurised milk introduced at some point, which probably accounts for the loss of cheese making, but the ban has subsequently been lifted to some extent (for small producers etc etc), hence why you can still buy it in some places.
Here you go:
https://www.food.gov.uk/safety-hygiene/raw-drinking-milk
Quote: The sale of raw drinking milk is legal in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It can only be sold directly to the consumer by:
registered milk production farms at the farm gate or farmhouse catering operation
farmers at registered farmers’ markets
distributors using a vehicle as a shop such as a milk round
direct online sales
vending machines at the farm
It’s illegal to sell raw milk in any other setting.
So its a small producer direct sales to the consumer thing. Selling bulk unpasteurised milk to factories making cheese is still illegal.
@Diogenes
If you can find a yellow line you can park on for more than 5 mins without getting a ticket you do not live in London.
From what I can see at this distance, “taking back control” means the continuation of the EU regulations you voted to end. Plus new regulations which would breach EU regulations if you hadn’t “taken back control”. They have you both going & coming.
@Jim
There’s a farm between Aylesbury and Buckingham that sells green top through a vending machine in their yard, and very good it is too. I asked our local dairy farmer (300 Jerseys) if he’d thought about selling direct, but his milk went into Beech Dean ice cream and he told me that one case of illness would damage the brand, so the risk was unacceptable. He’s since got out into arable.