Kirkfood Help & FAQ's




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Cheese

Hi Christine,

 Taleggio is becoming increasingly difficult to import, as Australian testing requirements make it near impossible for this particular cheese to pass. The problem is the cheese is tested for Ecoli, which is practically everywhere, and the test is only an indicative test, which does not discriminate between the toxic and non toxic strains. The Tolerance level as set by Food Standards Australia and New Zealand is about 100 times lower than world standards. (for some reason, our Bureaucrats are of the belief that Australians Stomachs are not able to handle the same sort of bugs as the rest of the worlds stomachs) So, when a cheese fails, the whole batch has to be thrown out and it becomes an unviable product to import. There is not an importer in Australia that I know of that hasn't experienced the pain of throwing out Thousands of dollars of cheese which in any other country in the world would have been quite acceptable.
 
While Taleggio is quite a unique cheese, there are many alternatives depending on what you are using it for. Just about any soft, washed rind cheese will suffice in most cooking applications. So, King River Gold, Pont L'eveque, Munster, St Nectaire, etc.

You wouldn't believe how many chefs are extremely dissapointed in this set of circumstances so you are not alone.
I have seen it available recently at D'J's Food halls and at Norton Street grocer.

Kirkfood will not be importing this product in the near future or until we find a supplier that will wear the cost of failure.


 

Butter