Local Cheese Makers Opposed To Proposed FDA's Aging Rules

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Farmsteads that send cheese to local farmers' markets and restaurants are against proposals the FDA is considering to extend the current 60-day rule to age raw-milk cheese. It could be 90 days, or longer, but they say better options include more controls on milk quality and improved sanitation in cheese plants.

The Food and Drug Administration requires the two-month rule with the intention of protecting consumers from potentially harmful bacteria in unpasteurized milk. 

Melanie Dietrich-Cochran, who helps run Keswick Creamery in Newburg, PA, says, "I don't want to sound too much like a conspiracy theorist, but I don't think it's a food safety issue at all.'

She says there's a big difference in taste and tact between farmstead cheese and industrially produced cheese from large companies.

"The quality of the milk that they start with is just so poor that they have to pasteurize it in order to be able to make a safe product."

Dietrich-Cochran says some large producers start with "co-mingled" milk from 10, 20 or more dairy farms. They have 40 Jersey cows on the Keswick Creamery that are fed their natural diet of grass and hay.

Reported by Steve Tawa, KYW Newsradio 1060