Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips the size of a grain of sand into their 90-pound cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 528 points – Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips the size of a grain of sand into their 90-pound cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters
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Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are putting edible microchips the size of a grain of sand into their 90-pound cheese wheels to combat counterfeiters::Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano makers are using microchips to verify the authenticity of their products and thwart scammers.

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For fucks sake... This is literally about an RFID sticker that is put on the outside of whole cheese wheels.

So unless you buy whole 40kg wheel and then eat it with the rind... you are not eating any.

And also fuck that article for even mentioning that.

That makes it sound like the "edible" aspect of this is just an anti idiot feature. *Or just "printed" on it.

Either way, pointless article.

I believe regulations require that everything you put in or on food is technically editable. Like the paper stickers on bread or produce. They are disgusting, but if you or your child accidentally eats them, they are fine.

Those tiktokers eating the plastic around fruit chews are vindicated!

So I can eat the plastic wrappers?

Once?

You can probably get away with it more than once, after all there was that one person who was addicted to eating plastic. I will say it definitely isn't good for you to do it, so I definitely wouldn't recommend it.

Alex Jones will yell about the headline and say Soros is microchipping food and if you eat cheese the 5g vaccine will do a false flag and turn the frogs even gayer.

I mean the top comment here didnā€™t even read the article to find out thereā€™s no risk of them ingesting it unless itā€™s done on purpose after they purchase the entire wheel, they just read the headline and implied what it suggested without actually learning the full truth.

Alex Jones makes money on being a walking, talking ā€œclickbait headlineā€. And people are so addicted to the dopamine they get from feeling ā€œsmarterā€ than other people (after being dumb all their lives because the American school system has been designed to fail them) that they huff his words like a drug.

Smug superiority is addictive.

You're completely right, but it's also highlighted when people on the internet discuss things they know nothing about but decide to become very sarcastic against "the other side."

smug superiority indeed. many examples in this very thread.

unless you buy whole 40kg wheel and then eat it with the rind

Haha no of course not...

lol right? I would never lol, that would be like, too much? Would it be too much? Honestly we may never know

It would probably last you a decade even if you really eat a lot of parmesan

You severely underestimate my cheese eating ability

I seriously love parmesan. I always buy it fresh and grate it myself. I know pretty well how much cheese is reasonable to eat in a sitting. 100g is insanely much for one serving, but you could distribute it over the whole day. If you eat 100g of parmesan each day, 1kg will be gone after 10 days. That means eating 40kg takes 400 days, or a bit longer than a year.

Being a bit more realistic easily allows you to stretch that wheel of parmesan over the span of a decade, even if you seriously love the stuff.

I'm perfectly aware that you're not being entirely serious but I just can't let it stand like that.

shifty eyes Yes, 100 grams is quite a lot. Yes. Indeed. Quite right.

When I was a kid we'd grate 200g for 4 people. I take a bit less nowadays than what I would get as a kid but some people still look at me funny. I think 20-30g is a regular serving.

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To save you a click (although none of the other commenters seem to have read the article anyway): The microchips aren't embedded into the actual cheese that you eat, but are part of the label attached to the outside rind. Nobody will be eating microchips.

The chips use blockchain technology and trace the wheel of cheese back to where the milk that was used came from.

Cryptobros, Unite! We finally found a way for blockchain tech to be relevant for more than just ransomware! We authenticate cheese!

Someone's gonna make a ton of money on CheeseCoin

Blockchain is also good for solving the Ship of Theseus problem. You can encode the entire history of the object into the object.

Blockchain has many cool uses and none of them are currency.

Blockchain =/= crypto

Crypto uses blockchain, but blockchain is just a different type of database that generally tracks data through a decentralized network. It has a lot of real uses beyond crypto like identity verification, transcript/records management management, and iot data sharing. Itā€™s nothing that canā€™t be done in a centralized manner, itā€™s just a different way of going about it that, in some cases, is much more secure and/or much more easily accessible.

Itā€™s nothing that canā€™t be done in a centralized manner,

and thats the main problem with basically all blockchain related solutions, theres pretty much always a centralized alternative thats more efficient

and much more.... centralized? But let's also just ignore the part where it's described as generally more secure as well.

The cheese makers are not concerned about decentralization. Presumably they trust themselves, because they are the only ones trusted to write to the database. If they are the only ones allowed to put something on the chain, it's a central database, regardless of how many computers/places they run it on.

Blockchain is not magically more secure than any other equivalent cryptographic solution.

Most commercial non-crypto blockchains I've seen only have a couple of nodes connected, usually held by a single entity. In these cases it's no less centralised than any alternative write-only DB.

and much moreā€¦ centralized?

it being centralized dosent mean its bad. theres also the fact that many processes are centralized by the nature of how they work.

itā€™s described as generally more secure as well.

why would that be?

What corporation which validates their supply chain for authenticity is not already centralized? It literally makes no sense when the official manufacturer and logistics partners are all known, at that point you may at best want "transparency logs" but not blockchains. They're not even intended to stay authenticated on a second hand market, so there's no need to be able to keep tracking their movements after first sale

I don't know, can you make a JPEG of the cheese wheel and then put the hyperlink on the blockchain? Maybe make it so I can import the cheese in a shitty MMO that nobody actually wants to play?

If I run low on health and have to eat several dozen cheese wheels, will the authentic DRM ones provide a greater HP boost compared to the generic cheese wheels?

Actually an "HP boost" refers to using fake Hewlett-Packard ink cartridges that circumvent their ink-jet printer DRM. šŸ˜

Maybe Iā€™m a picker eater, but I think Iā€™d rather have an inauthentic product than eating a microchip.

as other people pointed out, is a sticker on the outside, on the hard part.

unless you are very hungry and have good teeth, you will not eat it.

yet, since is applied on edible product, it needs to be edible.

You won't be eating any, read again.

I know. Thereā€™s an answer above where I say that. Writing a jokey comment doesnā€™t mean you havenā€™t read it.

Well then the right thing to do would be to edit your misinformation-spreading comment in this thread, don't you think?

I'm not reading ALL of your comments

Haha no. Cause I read the article before I posted my comment. Iā€™m not spreading misinformation.

The misinformation is in the title of the article. Report the article instead of going after someone who read it, and is obviously not talking about the article seriously.

Itā€™s funny though when someone says read the article doesnā€™t read the one of the top tree of comments they are replying to where I explicitly say itā€™s a non issue 10 hours before your comment.

Maybe you want to edit your comment.

We are definitely not sorting comments by the same criterion, then.

Your other comment was nowhere to be seen šŸ˜‰

What if the inauthentic product is made by my mate dodgy Dave who got a load of cheap milk and some dirty old metalwork, it's ok he flushed a load of industrial cleaner through them and it's good stuff they use it to clean engines at his brother's garage...

You'd be far better off not buying a prestige product and getting a good quality cheese from a reputable manufacturer at a price that doesn't include a huge markup due to perceived historic significance

As long as Dodgy Dave passed his mandatory FDA inspections I'd eat his cheese.

You think the big brands don't use industrial cleaner? LOL

But the point is if the labels are fake you don't know if they got inspected, it's organized crime gangs running it and they're not really known for being sticklers for the law...

The cleaning products and procedures are heavily regulated in food production because when they're not people cut corners and use cheaper things without regard for long-term health effects

Now you're worried about counterfeit Dodgy Dave cheese? Where are you buying your cheeseā€½

There was a HUGE scandal in the UK over rotten horse meat getting mixed into basically everything. This was part of the whole Ikea horse meat story from years ago.

It's a supply chain issue, criminal gangs fake paperwork and all that stuff hence the cheese people going for more extreme security measures - you could be eating Dave's cheese in an expensive restaurant, as far as they know it's ligit but the importer or supplier duped them

I mean I was being a little jocular in my comment (since this tracker is on the outside) it doesnā€™t really matter.

But by preferring ā€œinauthenticā€ I was thinking something like ā€œGreek style cheeseā€ which is just feta but made outside of Greece or sparking wine for champagne. So food standards still apply.

But yeah, they are trying to stop fraudulent claims.

The conspiracy theorists are going to run wild with this one.

Thatā€™s because makers of Parmigiano-Reggiano are implanting microchips into the casings of their 90-pound cheese wheels as the latest move to ward off counterfeiters, The Wall Street Journal reported.

If it's just going in the casings, then it wouldn't be eaten I guess?

Except for counterfeiters. They eat the whole thing to make sure their copies are accurate but now we can track their poops. I'm telling you, Mario, this thing is genius!

They don't read the article though so as far as they're concerned this proves jet fuel can't melt 5G COVID

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its funny that some ppl are paranoid that bill gates is trying to microchip them with a vaccine when they probably already have been by the fucking itailians

Not really putting them "into" their cheese, just the labels that bind with their outer casing of the cheese wheel. Still neat.

They are being placed on the casein label, a food-safe label commonly used in cheese production, which is placed on the cheese wheel.

Okay...

That still begs the question, why are they considered edible? Are people eating the labels? šŸ¤”

Probably because otherwise people would be like "yOuRe PuTtInG mEtAl IN mY cHEeSe"

Even if it's just the size of a grain of sand, I don't want to worry about biting down on that.

I would too, but it goes in the shell/outside that goes around the cheese wheel, not in the cheese itself

I'm just saying, there's a reason we're not allowed to have kinder surprise eggs in the US. If we can find a way to hurt ourselves with food we will. And then we will sue.

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Except it is very common to boil cheese rind for broth. And prolonged exposure high temperatures tend to break down pollutants into even more reactive forms as well as draw them out into solution. Worse if it's in like a commercial steam oven or pressure cooker that can get much higher than 100 C, you know, like many professional restaurants make a point of using.

I doubt it will be that easy to identify and scrape off, because that would defeat the point, probably hidden deep within the layers. It says it can't be read remotely so very unlikely it's just an off the shelf RFID sticker you can easily see and peel off. I also doubt a lot of people will know it's there and that it needs to be removed in the first place, or they'll take their word for it that it's edible even though they are absolutely in no position to make that claim and have definitely not done the rigorous medical research/testing to actually justify a claim like that.

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I guess in that case I should probably seek out the counterfeit versions of it since they're now apparently better than the originals.

Where in the article did it mention that the counterfeit versions are better than the originals? I didn't see a comparison of quality at all (maybe I missed it?).

I think it's more than the counterfeit versions have gotten so good and/or cheap that the genuine manufacturers feel the need to compete by placing microchips in their cheese rather than improve their own or bring down the price.

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If I can make cheese good enough to pretend that it's another brand, I'm gonna just slap my own label on it

It's not a brand name but a regionally protected signifier. Like champagne.

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Hold up...

There is counterfeit cheese?

It's not Parmigiana-Reggiano if it doesn't come from the Parmigiana-Reggiano region of France. Everything else is just sparkling cheese.

Swiss cheese seems like it literally is sparkling cheese. The holes are the carbonation! šŸ¤£

šŸ¤“

Ackshually...

The holes in the swiss cheese is due to contaminants and they've formalised the process because it turned out that their cleanliness standards removed too many contaminants.

(Sorry, I'm also a hit at parties)

It's Italian. Parma and Reggio are two Italian cities.

That doesn't sound right. Are you sure it's not just all Italian France?

I am Italian and am pretty sure.

https://www.parmigianoreggiano.com/

Even though somehow more people agree with you than with me, proving the point that it's important to defend the trademark.

You're not crazy, I was just fucking around. People aren't agreeing with me, they recognize I'm joking, and they are probably downvoting you because you responded as though I was being serious.

There's an old reference that Champagne isn't Champagne unless it comes from the Champagne region of France. Otherwise it's sparkling wine. It's become a meme (although the joke predates the popular use of the term "meme") to say X isn't X unless yadda yadda sparkling Y. I left the bit about it being from France because I thought it would be funny to be confidently incorrect about that, like all of Europe is French.

I really didn't know how much Italian cheese is known abroad. Usually the French specialties are more famous.

In the USA, parigiana is practically synonymous with italian food. We have this powdered cheese product that comes in a plastic can that sort of replicates the msg flavor but has a gritty feel due to an anti-caking agent we add to the powder.

But fancy italian cheeses are widely available as well, and many grocery stores carry proper parmesan, romano, provolone, pecorino, gorgonzola, asiago, mascarpone, ricotta, and of course mozzarella. Ironically, it's the areas where dairy farming is most popular where you find fewer international options, but that's just because there will be 20 local variations of cheddar.

How would we know you are really Italian without scanning your microchip?

He was joking lol, he was talking about it like how people talk about champaign and sparkling wine šŸ¤£

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And olive oil and cigarettes and... Anything else really.

EU has lots of protected origin products.

Yea, many swiss brands have problems protecting their IP in America. Just recently Emmentaler lost its IP there, because Emmentaler describes a sort of cheese which is like our Swiss Emmentaler in America vs here in Switzerland only cheese from the Emmental is allowed to be called a Emmentaler.

Also for the GruyĆØre cheese it was recently announced the US will ignore Switzerland's claims. That despite the fact GruyĆØre and Emmentaler are traditionally made with raw milk, something that's illegal in the US.

Itā€™s ridiculous that while we canā€™t protect our cheese in America they just successfully protect pictures of any apple (even real ones) here in Switzerland.. Well, luckily only in connection with technology, but yea REAL Applesā€¦

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Why are they not using those nanotech microchip trackers that are small enough to fit in a vaccine, and that can communicate with a satellite without any need for a radio or battery?

The cheese is ruined when they make it magnetic, of course

if people who is eating them cant tell the difference than whats the point

Probably to protect the "brand" at places that actually care about advertising what kind of cheese they have

They make counterfeit Rolex so good, you need an expert and a microscope to tell the difference. Why not cheese.

It's almost like luxury goods are a scam and purely for bragging rights of having the brand, and not that the actual object is unique or the best!

You really don't want to buy counterfeit food.

One of the biggest reasons for avoiding counterfeit food is the higher risk of contaminants.

Semiconductors are a pretty serious contaminant.

Could you please elaborate on that

My friend, itā€™s food. You put into your body. Do you really need to ask why itā€™s a huge breach of trust?

But putting microchips in your body is ok? Seems to me the counterfeit cheese is now better for me.

I see your point, but both wheels are questionable in different ways.

Making your own product worse to own the counterfeiters.

This is like complaining that they changed the ink to print the labels with.

My biggest problem is that they're claiming it's edible and acting like it's nothing. Like who are you to make that claim? Are you a toxicologist or a biochemist? Have you done ten years of medical studies into the effects of ingesting semiconductors? Got DOI link to a peer reviewed paper to support it being classed as edible? It's "edible till someone dies eating it" as usual with these things. The food industry's claims of "edible" and "safe" additives have been proven wrong far too many times (while knowing they were wrong to begin with and intentionally covering up that fact) to be trusted ever again. Just put a shiny RFID sticker on the outside that's clear to the consumer that it needs to be removed and honestly it would be far less problematic, what's even the point of hiding it inside?

It's in the EU. There are rules about what's allowed to be put in food.

Also don't bother replying. I don't like your pointless combativeness. Have fun with your blood pressure.

TIL there's a global market in fake cheese. Which is to say, real cheese that someone slapped a fancier label on.

I'm sure all the steps we took to reach this point were logical ones, but we still find ourselves in a very strange place.

Yeah it's like how the Champaign region has brutalised it's soil with over production and now produces substandard grapes compared to other regions but due to established customs can charge the most.

Cheese makes even less sense as the original taste was down to the quality of the dairy and the process of making it - both of which have changed totally and are easily replicatable, though fake cheese is potentially dangerous if made unlicenced because God knows what corners they could cut - I don't want to eat something full of reminant cleaning products and deadly pathogens.

Really then avoiding over-priced prestige products is the best choice economically, medically, and morally (I'll skip the essay on that but the main point is it's funding greed and establishing a classist normal which is something we should be moving away from).

Legally it's only cheese if it comes from the "Formaggi" region in Italy. Otherwise it has to be called "bad milk product".

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This is the best summary I could come up with:

The next time you dig into a bowl of pasta with freshly grated parmesan, you could accidentally be eating a microchip.

That's because makers of Parmigiano-Reggiano are implanting microchips into the casings of their 90-pound cheese wheels as the latest move to ward off counterfeiters, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Parmigiano-Reggiano must be made in a particular area of northern Italy's Emilia Romagna region and with specific production standards and techniques.

The microchip can then be scanned to pull up a unique serial ID that buyers can use to ensure they've got the real thing.

"We keep fighting with new methods," Alberto Pecorari, whose job is to protect the product's authenticity for a group that represents Parmigiano makers, told the Journal.

Parmigiano-Reggiano is among the many food products that are formally protected in the European Union, including Champagne from France and Feta from Greece.

The original article contains 324 words, the summary contains 144 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

The microchips arenā€™t edible because they want you to eat them. Theyā€™re edible because they know some idiot eventually will eat one.

Assuming this is even real, someone is conflating the concept of "food grade" with being edible.

Are we not all chipped anyways through the civic vaccine? /s

Thankfully countries voted to avoid that during the meeting of the Honda Accords.

TIL that counterfeit fucking cheese is a thing.

Well one wheel of the cheese costs $1000

I know a bloke who'll just squash a load of cheddar together for you for about 40 bucks. We call him big cheese.

So if you eat the chip, does it mean you officially become a wheel of cheese?

If you start eating packaging like stickers glued to the rind of cheese, I think you can legally be considered a kind of human-goat hybrid.

My networth would increase if you value the cheese-turned-fat at parmigiano market value.

So if you eat the chip, does it mean you officially become a wheel of cheese?

Depends if you have been a real or a fake person before... ;-)

No but you do become the property of a man in Italy

Can't wait for the nutcases to come out of woodwork and claim this is a way to control the population šŸ™ˆ

Sure why not? Add to the delicious medley of microplastics and persistent organic pollutants, what could go wrong!

My Parmesan cheese comes from Wisconsin and I think it's good.

The more local cheese makers the better, as long as it does not call itself Parmigiano-Reggiano.

I wonder how close they are to realm parmesan, those counterfeited cheeses.

Parmigiano Reggiano is truly something special.

There exist (cheaper) cheeses made in a similar style, but no serious manufacturer will call it Parmigiano Reggiano, or even Parmesan. Usually have their own brand.

Or you can make your own https://youtu.be/s1k1w7SnNEY

Worth noting that they use microchips because blind taste tests, chemical analysis, and any other comparison demonstrates that copies are indistinguishable - if you buy prestige food products you're almost certainly just wasting money

Not necessarily. The insane level of protection applied by the original is the motivation to produce such good copies. Otherwise the copies would be just a generic "hard cheese".

DOP/AOP regulations imo produce more benefit than harm, even by motivating copycats

I think the problem is more that they don't want to have to do those things on every single wheel, the microchips make identification easier. Also worth noting that many things can be physically and/or chemically identical but still have different value due to the way it was produced, some things that come to mind are power and hydrogen. They can both be produced in many ways, with some in more environmentally friendly ways than others, and the consumer may care about that.

If the microchip just contains a unique serial ID you can check with the producer, it would be just as easy to print it in the casing or glue it to the side of the wheel, no need to implant it in the outermost layer of cheese.

It is just glued on it. It's just on the label, not implanted inside the cheese wheel. The "you could be eating microchips!!!" part of the article is pure clickbait.

All they say is they'd be safe to eat if for some reason it ended up in the cheese. Like the rest of the label I guess.

Jfc the people in this thread refuse to read

T h e m I c r o c h I p I s I n t h e c a s I n g n o t t h e c h e e s e

This is like that Brooklyn 99 episode where everyone is putting microchips in Terry's yogurt

So to combat fake cheese, real cheese makers change their cheese and make them crunchier? šŸ¤”

Next up. Improve your wireless network with cheese.