Venezuela is the second largest cheese-producing country in Latin America, surpassed only by Argentina, and one of the top 25 in the world, according to Latinometrics. The accounts of this company are based on the information of the FAO, the United Nations and the specialized monitor “Our World in Data”.
Despite the serious economic stagnation of recent years, local cheese production – not export – has not stopped growing and in 2009 even ranked ahead of emblematic nations in the universal cheese industry, such as Switzerland. Latinometrics now estimates local cheese production at 300,000 tons per year. Widespread and appreciated by the population, constantly present on the national table, the copious production of Venezuelan cheeses is the result of a pastoral tradition of some importance, linked to the founding of the Republic and the particular conditions of a tropical and sober environment.
Most of them are fresh white cheeses, with a wide variety of specimens – those with spun paste prepared with raw milk, such as Guayanese, Telita, Braid and Hand being the most appreciated – although cheeses are also famously hard and salty Llaneros, such as the annual cheese. Also particularly appreciated are the Santa Bárbara and Palmizulia varieties from the south of Lake Maracaibo, semi-soft and with large holes, and Creole European varieties such as Pecorino, Parmesan, Gouda, Edam and Manchego are produced and consumed.
However, the local business community linked to the local cheese industry has some reservations about this international report. “Colombia currently has a cheese industry that doubles ours, and Uruguay is a historically powerful producer,” says one of them. “Venezuelan cheese has a number one quality, but these figures do not reflect the reality of the country.” Calculations by local civil associations such as the Red Agroalimentaria de Venezuela put the local production at around 175,000 tons per year and place the country 26th in the world in terms of tons produced and third in the Latin American ranking behind Argentina and Mexico.
Although weakened in large-scale industry, the national cheese is widely used in small and medium-sized businesses and is the livelihood of many common people in the fields and in the towns. Farmhouse cheese is a modality widely available at the foot of the roads. The country’s economic deterioration has drained industrial hides from local cheese production, an activity that has become 80 percent informal over the past 10 years, according to studies by the Agrifood Network of Venezuela.
The production of cheeses from raw milk – that is, unpasteurized – which, for many people, makes the real difference in terms of quality of taste and is a very common factor in their local production, represents a complete barrier to export and distribution dar of Venezuelan cheese, currently unknown in specialized international circles. “There is a big problem with cold chains because of the service problems in the country,” says Roger Figueroa, president of the Venezuelan Chamber of Dairy Industry, Cavilac. “That makes it necessary to salt it more than necessary.”
“I belong to a family of six generations of makers of Llanero cheese,” says Rodrigo Freitas from Camaguán in the state of Guárico in the center of the country. “I sell them all in Caracas, they sell very well, I have a very loyal clientele, nobody has stopped asking for them, even in the worst moments of the crisis. The production and consumption of cheese are deeply rooted in the country’s fields, among ordinary people and among those who have money.”
“We have grown a lot in these years, we work with a dairy account of 150 producers, with new players on the market,” say Elisa Grimaldi and Marianela García, owners of Anannké, a company specializing in the production and distribution of goat’s cheese ago 18 Established years ago, highly appreciated by consumers.
The local cheese has received the reinforcement of the buffalo variants in these years, thanks to the somewhat uncontrolled increase in the last 20 years of the herd of these animals, which adapt with great ease to the savannas of the plain, confirms the expert and industrialist Rodrigo Agudo of the National Federation of Cattlemen, Fedenaga. “Venezuelan’s cheese industry received tremendous support from Italian immigration in the ’50s and ’60s. This is where most of the farmhouse cheese is made, perishable fresh cheeses that are difficult to import.”
Follow all information from Business And Business on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter
Five Day Program
The most important economic dates of the day, with the keys and context to understand their scope.
RECEIVE IT IN YOUR MAIL