Microchips in the Parmigiano and Other Ways Europeans Are Fighting Fake Food

upstart writes:

Microchips in the Parmigiano and Other Ways Europeans Are Fighting Fake Food:

Parmigiano-Reggiano producers are seeking new ways to protect the market for the world-famous pasta topping. Their latest trick to beat counterfeiters is edible microchips.

Italian producers of parmesan cheese have been fighting against imitations for years. Now, makers of Parmigiano-Reggiano, as the original parmesan cheese is officially called, are slapping the microchips on their 90-pound cheese wheels as part of an endless cat-and-mouse game between makers of authentic and fake products.

"We keep fighting with new methods," said Alberto Pecorari, who is in charge of protecting Parmigiano's authenticity for the consortium representing producers. "We won't give up."

Other European food producers are also going to ever greater lengths to protect their hallowed brand names against knockoffs. Guaranteeing food authenticity is big business in the European Union and more than 3,500 EU products have received protected status in addition to Italy's Parmigiano, including Greek feta cheese, French Champagne and Italian Parma raw ham.

[...] New methods to guarantee the origin of products are being used across the EU. Some wineries are putting serial numbers, invisible ink and holograms on their bottles. So-called DNA fingerprinting of milk bacteria pioneered in Switzerland, which isn't in the EU, is now being tested inside the bloc as a method for identifying cheese.

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