The FDA is investigating claims that some Parmesan cheeses labeled “100% Parmesan” are filled with substitutes like wood pulp. “Some grated Parmesan suppliers have been mislabeling products by filling them with too much cellulose, a common anti-clumping agent made from wood pulp,” Bloomberg News reports.
Bloomberg.com reports that the FDA found evidence in 2012 that Castle Cheese, Inc was doing just that and distributing it to some of the country’s biggest food chains, including Target. The company president is scheduled to plead guilty this month and faces a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
Castle Cheese, Inc isn’t the only company suspected of this mislabeling. In fact, Arthur Schuman Inc., the biggest seller of hard Italian cheeses in the U.S., told Bloomberg he estimates 20% (or $375 million in sales) of cheeses are mislabeled.
Bloomberg News wanted answers so they had store-bought grated cheese tested for wood pulp by an independent laboratory.
Their findings:
Cellulose is a safe additive, and an acceptable level is 2 percent to 4 percent, according to Dean Sommer, a cheese technologist at the Center for Dairy Research in Madison, Wisconsin.
Essential Everyday 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese, from Jewel-Osco, was 8.8 percent cellulose, while Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s Great Value 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese registered 7.8 percent, according to test results. Whole Foods 365 brand didn’t list cellulose as an ingredient on the label, but still tested at 0.3 percent. Kraft had 3.8 percent.
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