In a rare example of something good coming from months of lockdown, French cheesemakers have accidentally discovered a new product that has become a hit among their customers.
The coronavirus pandemic has rattled many businesses and industries across the globe. In France, iconic wine and cheese producers saw orders dramatically falling after massive closures of restaurants and markets.
A family of cheese producers from the French commune of Saulxures-sur-Moselotte also suffered from plummeting sales as the epidemic peaked in the country. At the beginning of the lockdown, Lionel and Laura Vaxelaire had nearly 60 Munster cheeses left in the cellar.
Busy keeping the family business afloat, the couple left the strong-smelling soft cheese untouched for a month… only to discover that it had transformed into something completely new. The cheese, which remained isolated in the maturing room, developed a greyish, mottled flowery rind and had a different flavor.
“We kept maturing some batches, and one specific batch, we started to turn into Munster, but we put it aside and stopped dealing with it for lack of time because we needed to focus on orders and home deliveries after the lockdown,” Laura Vaxelaire recalled.
The new cheese needed a name and, given that it was born during the nationwide lockdown, they decided to call it ‘le confine’, which means ‘the confined’ or ‘the locked down’.
The ‘lockdown cheese’ became the “star of post-confinement,” giving the family much-needed relief after difficult times of forced quarantine, according to Lionel Vaxelaire.
“At the moment we have no more stock in advance,” his wife said in a Ruptly video.
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