Southern Diva

Check your Parmesan cheese wheels, folks. They’ll soon have trackers. At least the ones from Parmigiano Reggiano will. And to answer the question, yes, counterfeit cheese is a thing and it is a $2 billion industry. Almost as much as the legitimate counterpart’s profits at $2.44 billion.

Parmigiano Reggiano will put trackers in 100k of their cheese wheels to curb the frauds . High-tech transponders will (hopefully) better control, identify, and protect its inventory. According to the Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium “The innovation combines food-safe Casein labels with the p-Chip micro transponder — a blockchain crypto-anchor that creates a digital ‘twin’ for physical items. This scannable new food tag is smaller than a grain of salt and highly durable, delivering next-generation visibility and traceability” (Food and Wine , The Newsette).

Cover Image Credit: Williams-Sonoma