Article Archive - October 27, 2006

Brie, Camembert bring royal heritage to U.S. cheese market

Editor’s note: Each month, CMN profiles a different cheese, giving our readers a comprehensive look at production, marketing and sales, as well as any other interesting details we can unearth. Please read on to learn about this month’s featured cheese: Brie/Camembert.

By Amelia Buragas

MADISON, Wis. — Brie and Camembert may be steeped in Old World tradition, but they’re just getting warmed up on the U.S. market. Both of these soft, mold-ripened cheeses are finding new devotees among consumers looking for out-of-the-ordinary cheeses.

They’ve also received a boost from U.S. artisan and farmstead cheesemakers who are building on this Old World tradition to create cheeses that are distinctly American and well-received on the competition circuit.

“We’ve been producing Brie and Camembert for almost 20 years and so far this market hasn’t stopped growing as long as we keep improving the quality and consistency of our product,” says Francois Capt, general manager, Old Europe Cheese Inc., Benton Harbor, Mich., which produces both Brie and Camembert under the Reny Picot brand name.

However, growing the market for soft, mold-ripened cheeses is not without its challenges.

“Brie and Camembert are soft-ripened cheeses and are fundamentally different than the all-American Cheddar,” says Thomas Loftus, Blythedale Farm, Corinth, Vt. “Americans are very familiar with hard cheeses. That’s what most people are used to. But the soft-ripened cheeses are coming on really strong and becoming very popular.”

• What’s in a name?

Brie and Camembert often are referred to as the king and queen of cheese, respectively. (Brie, however, certainly is not the only cheese to have been crowned king. Roquefort, another French cheese, has been known to usurp the title, as have others.) Both cheeses hail from France and take their names from their place of origin. Brie is named after the French province where it was developed, while Camembert is named after the village of Camembert in northwestern France. Despite their different locations of origin, these two cheeses are remarkably similar.

Steve Jenkins, an opinionated expert on cheese, speaks about the difference between Brie and Camembert in his book “Cheese Primer:”

“[T]hough few cheese experts point this out, real Brie and real Camembert taste identical. If you were to taste them blindfolded you would not be able to distinguish between them,” he says.

Jenkins goes on to note that while these cheeses originate from different areas in France, these areas have similar topography and the basic recipe for Brie and Camembert is the same.

Of the two cheeses, Brie has the highest name recognition. Robert Poland, co-owner, MouCo Cheese Co., Fort Collins, Colo., says market testing performed by his company shows consumers demonstrate a 2 to 1 name recognition of Brie over Camembert. Poland confirms that the cheeses are nearly identical; however, he notes that Camembert tends to be made in smaller-sized wheels than Brie. Poland says he and his wife Birgit Halbreiter, who is a co-owner of MouCo, felt it was necessary to honor this distinction when they developed MouCo Camembert for the U.S. market.

“We could have called it Brie,” says Poland. “But we decided we were making Camembert, not playing the marketing game.”

Both Brie and Camembert are soft, mold-ripened cheese. A white, bloomy rind develops on the surface of these cheeses due to the application of Penicllium Candidum. The mold produces enzymes, which digest the cheese’s protein and produce ammonia as a byproduct. Ripening occurs in a matter of weeks and continues throughout the life of the cheeses, something cheesemakers must consider when getting their cheese to the consumer.

“The biggest challenge in making and selling Brie and Camembert is that you need to conciliate a long shelf life with a fast ripening, creamy and flavorful product,” says Capt. “Of course, these are not always compatible characteristics and you have to evaluate your priorities in order to make a Brie that will best fit your market.”

For MouCo, this has meant turning the cheese’s aging profile into a selling point. Poland says MouCo’s Camembert is not stabilized and will continue to age throughout the life of the cheese. (Some companies choose to stabilize, or stop the aging process, to increase shelf life. As a stabilized cheese ages, it will become drier and harder in texture.)

“We make a more delicate cheese that changes texturally over time and allows us to capitalize on a portion of the market that other companies aren’t interested in,” Poland says.

MouCo uses a dating system on the company’s labels to educate consumers as to what to expect during the aging process. A young Camembert, says Poland, is stiffer and has a creamy flavor with a hint of tartness. As the cheese ages it becomes softer with a nutty, buttery flavor.

Loftus says consumers have varying preferences when it comes to the age of Brie or Camembert. But he says that the cheeses seem to have their broadest appeal when they have a fondue-like texture beneath the rind and a firm center. He adds that in France and other European countries, it is common to see consumers rifling through a bin of Brie much like they might look for fresh fruit. American consumers, he says, need to be educated as to how to pick a ripe cheese.

“I think as far as specialty cheeses like Brie and Camembert, making it available to the broadest number of consumers is the most important thing,” Loftus says.

• Victim of success

Daphne Scholz, co-owner and cheese buyer of Bierkraft, a premiere cheese shop in Brooklyn, N.Y., says at least in the gourmet realm, Brie is a harder sell than it used to be. Scholz says food fashion is to blame and that Brie has become somewhat lackluster to a clientele that constantly is searching for the newest and trendiest cheese.

Scholz says Spanish cheeses are a prefect example of how quickly a trend can develop. She notes that 10 years ago the mention of the name Manchego would have been met by a “huh?” Today, Bierkraft sells dozens of Spanish cheeses and customers ask for them by name.

“Brie was super-fashionable in the ’80s and even working into the ’90s,” Scholz says. “It was at every party. Today, we have reasonably young customers who want to have things that say ‘look at me.’”

However, Scholz says Bierkraft has a double cream Brie that is very popular at the moment. The store also has seen recent interest in Coulommiers, a cheese that is closely related to both Brie and Camembert. Scholz says it has become more popular because it doesn’t look like a conventional Brie and has a higher cheese to rind ratio.

However, Brie remains a solid workhorse in the specialty cheese arena and cheesemakers say it is increasing its profile across the nation — especially during the holidays. Scholz says Brie sales increase by as much as 100 percent during the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.

“Certain kinds of cheeses lend themselves more snacking, to having a glass of wine and being with friends,” Poland notes.

Brie increasingly is popular on cheese plates. It also is the principle ingredient in a popular holiday appetizer, Brie en croute — a Brie-filled baked pastry. Brie also is showing up as an ingredient in gourmet meals, in sandwiches and on pizza.

• Production numbers

USDA does not record production or consumption data for Brie or Camembert as individual products. However, grocery retail sales data from Information Resources Inc. (IRI) show strong growth for both cheeses. From 2004 to 2005, combined grocery sales of these cheeses were up 4.7 percent from 10.3 million pounds in 2004 to 10.8 million pounds in 2005. Random weight sales account for the largest share of the market at 57.7 percent and were up 9.4 percent from 2004 to 2005.

For Brie alone, total grocery sales of Brie were up 4.9 percent from 2002 to 2005, according to the IRI data. The strongest area of growth was in the random weight category where sales were up 9.2 percent from 2004 to 2005 and made up 60.5 percent of total Brie sales.

Camembert experienced a more modest total grocery sales increase of 2.1 percent from 744,790 pounds in 2004 to 760,078 pounds in 2005. However, sales in the random weight category exploded and were up 20.0 percent. In 2005, random weight sales accounted for 19.7 percent of the segment compared to 16.8 percent in 2004.

The IRI grocery retail sales data do not include cheese sales in other segments of the retail channel, such as mass merchandisers, drug stores, specialty cheese stores and other outlets.

• Import vs. domestic production

When it comes to whether consumers have a preference for French imports over domestically-produced Brie and Camembert, there are mixed opinions.

“When it comes to Camembert, people almost always want French,” Scholz says. “They want it in a wood box. They want the authentic French flavor.”

Poland says it is common for consumers to look for a domestic version of a cheese they tasted while in Europe, but he says while the quality of the cheese is the same, the experience is not. He notes that often consumers have associated a Brie or Camembert with a French honeymoon or other emotionally-charged event on a European vacation.

“We’re competing with people’s memories,” Poland says. “We can’t compete with that.”

Poland also notes that the companies who import to the United States typically are larger — they are not milking two cows in a French hamlet and making farmstead cheese. They are large corporations and benefit from the economies of scale that go along with mass production. However, Poland notes that as the dollar has strengthened against the Euro, domestic products have become more competitive in terms of price.

Poland adds that tightening import regulations also have made it more difficult for foreign cheesemakers to import a product like Brie or Camembert, which has a limited shelf-life. On the other hand, he notes, American cheesemakers can ship cheese from the East Coast to the West Coast in a matter of hours. Poland also notes that American cheeses have proven themselves as equals to their European counterparts in international competitions, something consumers have noticed.

“This is the time of the American cheese,” Loftus says. “It’s a good time to be a cheesemaker right now.”

• Looking to the future

Poland, who has family in Germany, says Europe serves as a great model for what the future U.S. market for cheeses like Brie and Camembert might look like.

“In Bavaria, soft ripened cheeses occupy 50 percent or more of the shelf,” Poland says. “People’s palates and desires aren’t so much different as they have things that have been around a lot longer.”

“The future of Brie and Camembert in this country is bright because the product is being adapted to a lot of different applications, allowing for its rapid growth,” adds Capt. “There are still many improvements to be made which will extend the excitement customers feel for the Brie and Camembert.”

CMN

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