Status: 29/08/2023, 14:21 p.m.
By: Pauline Wyderka
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Their cheese may soon contain a rather unexpected ingredient: Parmesan manufacturers want to incorporate microchips into their products. Why this is the case:
A computer chip in cheese – how can you imagine that? Modern technology makes it possible. In the future, Parmesan manufacturers want to put a tiny chip in their cheese. This should allow the cheese to be tracked. However, it's not so much about being able to prove that the Parmesan will end up on your table, but rather about the path it has already taken. HEIDELBERG24 reveals what's behind it:
Microchip in Parmesan cheese – unconventional approach to cheese counterfeiting
Parmesan, i.e. real Parmigiano Reggiano, is a valuable commodity. At the very least, there is a lively counterfeit market around the original type of cheese. Officially, cheese can only be called Parmesan if it comes from the corresponding region in northern Italy. The type of cheese is not the only product whose designation of origin is protected. As is well known, champagne also has this privilege.
But others also want a piece of the cake – or the popular cheese wheel. For example, Parmesan fakes are apparently common that there is an entire Parmesan consortium, the Parmigiano-Reggiano Consortium (PRC), which wants to ensure that only the real cheese is sold as Parmesan. And it is precisely this PRC that wants to take action against the cheese counterfeiters with an unconventional method.
Microchips in food – cheese electronics with blockchain technology
As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Parmesan wheels will soon receive a secret ingredient. It is a microchip, no bigger than a salt crystal. The cheese electronics work with blockchain technology, which is also used in cryptocurrency trading. The manufacturer of the good piece is the American company p-Chip, which describes the chip as a kind of digital anchor for physical things.
The chip is embedded in a QR code on the label, which can be scanned. This makes it easy to trace the cheese back to the milk producer – and expose counterfeits. For one year, the microchips were tested on 100,000 Parmesan cheeses. As chip.de reports, the ripening process is not disturbed by the electronics.
Microchip in Parmesan: Technology to be safe for consumption
So you don't have to be afraid to buy Parmesan cheese soon and bite on a piece of hard metal or plastic. After all, the microchip is on the outside of the label, which you usually don't eat anyway. However, if a mishap happens to you and you swallow such a chip, it is not only so tiny that you are unlikely to notice it.
The electronics should even be food-safe. The chips are supposed to survive up to three weeks of stomach acid, so they are not broken down in the body, as the manufacturer assures. Accordingly, nothing can happen when consumed, the chip is simply completely excreted again. While chips are used in dairy products in Italy, a deposit is being introduced on them in Germany – which is met with criticism.
Microchips in food – the future of food production?
It remains to be seen whether microchips will ensure the quality of food more frequently in the future. In cases of a cheese recall like this one due to listeria, the technology might also be useful.
But research is also being carried out on other technologies. For example, Swiss scientists are trying to develop a way to use DNA to prove the authenticity of a food. (paw)