Will brie and Camembert cheeses go extinct?

Until recently, #Camembert and #brie came covered in shades of blue, orange and green — a product of the different strains of molds used to make the cheeses, said Jeanne Ropars, an evolutionary biologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research and Université Paris-Saclay.

Eventually, cheesemakers identified a particular strain of mold that was not only fast-growing, but also gave cheese an appealing white covering.

By the 1950s, the combination of industrialization and demand for uniform-looking cheese turned #Penicillium #camemberti into the gold standard.

It’s now the sole strain used in the production of brie and Camembert.

Over time, that could prove problematic, Ropars said.


Penicillium camemberti can’t reproduce on its own, so it has to be cloned over and over again
— which means that every cheese is made with a genetically identical strain.

That lack of genetic diversity makes it vulnerable to pathogens or other environmental changes, Ropars said.

. https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2024/03/09/camembert-brie-cheese-extinct-france/