Codex Milk Committee Drops Standard for Processed Cheese Products
During a recent meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Commission’s Committee on Milk and Milk Products, delegates reportedly agreed to recommend that the commission revoke the international standards on processed cheese when it meets in July 2010. A committee working group had been charged with redrafting a proposed standard for processed cheese and reported that it was unable to do so given the delegations that “continued to insist on textual solutions reflecting closely their own national situation, which did not attract consensus.” According to the working group’s co-chairs, “the fundamental difficulty with attempting to develop this standard arises from the requirement for the standard to address the very large variety of products marketed as processed cheese, while retaining scope for innovation.”
A representative of the International Dairy Foods Association, speaking on behalf of the U.S. representatives to the committee reportedly said, “The U.S. government and dairy industry have long believed that revoking the standards would be better than accepting poorly written updates that might compromise the U.S. processed cheese domestic market.” Among the issues of disagreement were cheese content and the acceptability of using gelatin, starches and stabilizers in processed cheese products.
In other action, the milk committee finalized a new standard on fermented milk products, such as smoothies, yogurts and kefir products; if approved by the commission, it would require these products to contain at least 40 percent dairy ingredients. The committee also agreed to endorse analytical testing methods supported by the International Dairy Federation and the International Organization for Standardization. Because this marks a departure from previous reliance on many American Association of Analytical Chemists testing methods, the U.S. dairy industry may need to test under both systems to meet U.S. and foreign market requirements. See DairyReporter.com, February 9, 2010.
