Cheese thieves are a thing and an Italian company wants to do something about it. Parmigiano Reggiano is one of the most counterfeited dairy products on the planet, as many make cheap knockoffs and undercut the price of the good stuff. In fact, to truly be Parmigiano Reggiano, the cheese must be made specifically in a small part of northern Italy, which includes the provinces of Parma and Reggio Emilia.
So how do the “big cheeses” think they’ll stop fakes? Enter, the microchip. The Parmigiano Reggiano Consortium (PRC) says it’s putting the chips in its products as part of a test trial which would allow consumers to trace parmesan cheese back to its original source. No bigger than a grain of salt, the microchips have been inserted into labels found on the rind of around 120,000 parm wheels. That way, each wheel can be scanned with its own QR code label for authenticity. If the test is a success, it could turn into a parm-anent solution.
Source: CBS News