Prepare to hoard some Gruyère, people. Unless talks this week produce a shift in positions, the U.S. will immediately implement a 39 percent tariff on imports from Switzerland. I can live without milk chocolate, but I can’t imagine life without my beloved Swiss cheeses. What will happen to Gourmino, the cooperative of small Swiss producers who send us their cave-aged gems, including the wheels from a four-time World Champion? What will happen to Caroline Hostettler, whose U.S.-based business and life’s mission is sourcing, shipping and celebrating traditional Swiss alpine cheeses? Her Adopt-an-Alp program has raised awareness for these rare products and may not survive a trade war.
“We’re trying to absorb these costs together—the producer, the exporter, ourselves and the distributor—to lower the negative impact,” says Hostettler. “The smaller producer only has a certain yield, so it’s more difficult to say, ‘I can take 5 percent.’ The larger producers will be more able and willing.”
Prices on Swiss cheese were going to rise anyway, says Hostettler, because the dollar has weakened considerably against the Swiss currency. (Switzerland is not in the European Union.) A steep tariff would be a double whammy.
Hostettler worries that consumers will turn to alternatives like Wisconsin gruyère and French raclette. “Finland produces tons of gruyère but it’s not AOP,” says Hostettler. “So does Poland. They will produce copies that don’t have these tariffs. It’s also a chance for American producers to show off and say, ‘We can produce that style.’”
Caroline Hostettler and friend
Hostettler’s decade-old Adopt-an-Alp initiative asks retailers to commit in advance to purchasing wheels produced by a cheesemaker on a single alp. Some of these remote alpine cheesemakers communicate with “their” retailers via YouTube or blogs, providing insight into their lives and updates on the cheesemaking process. When the wheels arrive in stores months later, retailers have lively stories to tell.
Hostettler says she and her partners have talked about what to do if Adopt-an-Alp retailers want to back out. “We’ll see who says they can take only half,” says Hostettler. “But we will not force someone to take something that’s 40 percent higher in price than what we announced.”
If you admire these Swiss cheeses as much as I do, you’ll want to stretch your budget and step up for them. Just a very short list of some of the prized Swiss wheels that would be affected by soaring tariffs:
Appenzeller
Chällerhocker
Emmentaler
L’Etivaz
Gruyère
Hoch Ybrig
Hornbacher
Moser Screamer
Raclette
Red Witch
Rockflower
Sbrinz
Tête de Moine
Ur-Eiche
Vacherin Fribourgeois
“I’m practicing patience,” says Hostettler. “You can make the smartest plans and they can topple tomorrow. It’s like you sat in the wrong movie theater and you didn’t want to watch this movie, but it is what it is and you can’t change it.”