We’re eating more than 400 grams of cheese a week per person

Explaining the art of cheesemaking for visiting wine experts, Val d’Herens, Valais, Switzerland, August 2012

BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss cheese industry benefited in the first five years of free trade with the European Union, a study released 30 October shows. Exports slowed down in 2011 due to the strong Swiss franc, but in the first half of 2012 the trade balance remained positive.

The free trade market also appears to have helped us eat more cheese in Switzerland, with consumption up 12 percent since 2000, as imports helped bring down prices and increase variety.

We now eat 21.44 kg of cheese per person per year in Switzerland, more than 400 grams per person a week. Germany and Italy come close and the French eat slightly more, according to figures from the Swissmilk.

The country produced 182,000 tons of cheese in 2011, up from 161,000 seven years earlier. Fresh cheese accounts for more than 25 percent of the total, the largest share, followed by semi-hard cheeses with 21.5 percent and Gruyere with nearly 16 percent of production.

Switzerland steadily lost market share in the EU during the 1990s. By 2003 it was exporting 40,000 tons of cheese to the EU annually, down by about 12,000 tons from a decade earlier. From 2002 to 2007 protective measures were gradually removed and by 2007 an open market was in place.

A study commissioned by the Office of Agriculture and carried out during the first six months of 2012 shows that as a result, Switzerland has a positive trade balance, both in terms of quantity and monetary value. It  increased production and exports to the EU while also importing more cheese, mainly soft and fresh cheeses.

Swiss cheese imports into the EU have increased more than cheese  imports overall, increasing Swiss market share, particularly in Germany, Austria and France.

The negative element for the Swiss in the trade shift is the fall in Emmenthal exports, down 32 percent between 2003 and 2011, while the export of all other cheeses combined has risen 100 percent. Emmenthal lost its earlier special status with the EU, which allowed conditional imports.