An article by the Times Online explains a recent crackdown by authorities on cheese fraud in Italy:

[Luca Zaia, the Agriculture Minister] said there was no health risk, adding “It is not a question of food security so much as of respect for the rules of production”. However he had taken “urgent action” by placing the mozzarella consortium under “special administration” for three months while a committee of police and ministry inspectors investigated.

He said he had acted “because the situation was deteriorating. Over the past two years my zero-tolerance policy has led to the discovery of many causes of food fraud. In November, checks in major supermarkets in Italy found that 25 per cent of the cheese sold as buffalo mozzarella was fake because it contained 30 per cent cow milk.”

Great example of how compliance depends on governance. It is a good thing he has no jurisdiction over the US cheese market or almost the entire mozzarella supply would be abruptly halted. I have tried without much success to find a consistent source buffalo mozzarella in America.

This case is notably different from a security risk that is also mentioned in the article.

Two years ago sales of mozzarella fell after buffalo milk was found to be contaminated with high levels of dioxin from rotting piles of uncollected rubbish in the Naples area. Sixty-six buffalo herds were quarantined and over 100 farmers and dairy producers were investigated for alleged “fraud and food poisoning”. In April last year inspectors found that some buffalo in the Caserta area near Naples had been given somatropine, a human growth hormone, although officials said this did not pose a health risk.

Thus compliance also depends to a large degree on consumer awareness and interests. Governance is meant to be a representation of demand, so risk definition becomes one of the first steps to creating rules for compliance. Risk from dioxins, for example, is much easier to quantify and campaign against than the risk from lack of authenticity. Who is harmed when cheese is fake? Many Americans, in fact, are likely to turn a blind eye to imitation — mozzarella made from cow milk in California or cheddar from cows in Wisconsin. Risks related to the authenticity of cheese may be far less valued than appearance and price — cheap imitations (“generics”) thus build a strong following when no one close to home is hurt by the practice. Only when authenticity issues hurt a domestic source or more immediate health issues appear do calls for governance come forward.

…food for thought the next time you take a bite of mozzarella.