Foreign Cheese Makes Gains In Switzerland

Switzerland is famous for its cheese, especially the hole-filled Emmentaler, but Swiss people are increasingly turning to foreign cheese over domestic varieties.

According to The Local, Swiss residents on average ate 46.4 pounds of cheese per person in 2013. That was basically the same amount of cheese per capita as was consumed last year, but recent statistics from the Swiss Farmers' Union and Switzerland Cheese Marketing indicate that consumption of foreign brands and styles of cheese has been growing.

The average consumption of Swiss-produced cheese grew only .4 percent in the past year, while consumption of foreign cheese increased 1.6 percent to 14 pounds per person per year. Seven years ago, the average person consumed 10.5 pounds of foreign-produced cheese.

According to the Swiss Farmers' Union, the rise in demand for foreign produced cheese is related to the way consumer tastes have been changing lately. Hard cheese like Gruyère has fallen out of favor since 2005, while soft and semi-hard cheese has been growing in demand.