Cheese producers of New Zealand say they can’t compete with cheap European product flooding the market so are calling for tariffs to on speciality cheese imports.
Imported cheeses often sell for around half the price of local ones, the managing director of Whitestone Cheese and spokesperson for New Zealand Specialist Cheesemakers Association, says New Zealand producers are struggling.
“It’s been happening for a while,” he said. “They send it out frozen from the EU, fully subsidised, and they produce large bulk amounts of these cheeses with automated systems…so it’s landing here basically half price in containers and we see it on the shelves now.”
