Regulatory changes will make cheese and curds more expensive, but are expected to make them more genuine. The current Bulgarian state standard for dairy products will be replaced with a Protected Designation of Origin sign. The new labeling should orient the consumer better as to which cheese is from Bulgarian milk and which animals are fed mainly with Bulgarian feed.
Why BDS is no longer a guarantee for the quality of dairy products
Farmer Stoyan Tsenov has already read about the new marking that will be placed on dairy products. It is important to him because he will process the milk from the cows he looks after in his new dairy. He even now feeds them on the technology as it will be required. As he takes us to his new dairy, he continues to comment on the introduction of the Protected Designation of Origin for dairy products. He fully accepts the requirement that 100% of the milk be Bulgarian, and that the feed for the animals be at least 50-60% of native origin, but something else worries him. “We will handle the work. I don't know how we will prove it to them with the documents. Otherwise, my food is 100% Bulgarian. I don't buy anything, the milk is mine, but the bureaucracy is big and I don't know. We haven't gotten there yet. That's our problem. Otherwise, everything is ours”, says the farmer. It calculates the cost of a kilogram of real cheese according to the new criteria. “One kilogram of cheese is made from 7 liters of milk during the summer period. In winter, the milk is more concentrated or thicker. It can be done from 6 liters. 7 liters at 1 BGN are 7 BGN. With the other expenses, it goes to BGN 10. This is the cost price”, says Stoyan. According to the same calculation, the cost of the cheese is about 12-13 BGN per kilogram. It is with him and farmers like him, who feed animals with their own feed, and now it is like that, and there is nothing to change according to the new requirements.
It suggests that for consumers, cheese and cottage cheese with the new mark may become more expensive because of the documents that will be required. The question is whether they will feel a more real taste and to what extent it will be like that, since the manufacturers of imitation products are now successfully competing with those who offer dairy products according to the current Bulgarian state standard. The question is how the control will be carried out on the dairy products themselves – how will it be checked whether they are made from 100% milk, whether it is actually of Bulgarian origin and what exactly the cows ate, for example.
They put new labels on dairy products
In spite of everything, Stoyan wants the idea of the Protected Designation of Origin to really work successfully, but he is still a skeptic, because precisely because of bureaucratic obstacles, he has not been able to put his dairy into operation for 5 months, in which he will produce real products from real milk and more than 150 days working trial.