The Minister of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries of the Cabildo de TenerifeJavier Parrilla, and the mayor of Fasnia, Luis Javier gonzalezthey have delivered the prizes of the ‘V Tenerife Cheese Contest’ that is organized in Fasnia.
At the ceremony, held at City Hall, a total of 24 awards were givenamong which stands out the Great Gold Medal, awarded to the fresh raw goat milk cheese from the Agache cheese factorylocated in the municipality of Gúímar.
The Gold Medal went to the Granja Ara cheese factory, for a semi-cured cheese made from raw goat’s milk, and the prize for best image went to the Naturteno cheese factory.
Javier Parrilla affirmed that “these contests are essential to promote the local product and publicize the very high quality of the cheeses, which have nothing to envy to any other in the world, as has recently been demonstrated in Madrid Fusión”.
For his part, Luis Javier González, assured that “having a cheese contest of this level in Fasnia is extremely important” because the municipality wants to become “the benchmark for cheese contests in the south of Tenerife”. “That is the challenge we set ourselves and even more considering that we have two artisanal cheese factories in the municipality,” he said.
The contest contemplated two large categories: cheeses made from pasteurized goat’s milk (fresh, smoked and semi-cured) and raw milk cheeseswhich in turn were subdivided into traditional (cured, semi-cured, fresh smoked and fresh) and non-traditional.
In addition to those mentioned above, five gold medals were awarded to the JG Meneses, Granja Ara, Naturteno and La Morra cheese factories; eight silver medals to the cheese factories of El Sauzal, Pinolere, Naturteno, Cunygan and La Florida; and eight bronze to JG Meneses, Fuente La Tosca, Cunygan, Antonio and Juana, Pinolere, La Florida and Cañada de Fumero.
Help for artisan cheese factories
Parrilla advanced that the Council of Tenerife has approved the call for subsidies for the implementation of programs to improve the quality of sheep and goat milk produced in cattle farms on the island, endowed with €200,000details the corporation in a note.
Along these lines, he assured that consumer confidence and credibility in the face of local products is due to food safety.
“It is, therefore, that these aids result in obtaining cheeses and dairy products with the maximum sanitary guarantees so that they can compete in the internal and external market,” he comments.
The island manager emphasizes that “cheese, in addition to being a high-quality product, it is a very delicate product from the point of view of food hygiene and public healthwhich requires extreme hygienic-sanitary measures in the manufacturing, storage and distribution processes”.
These aids are aimed at those legal entities that have among their purposes the transformation of sheep or goat milk, are located on the island and registered in the General Sanitary Registry of Food and Food Companies or the Autonomous Sanitary Registry of Retail Commerce of the Ministry of Health of the Government of the Canary Islands.
The deadline for submitting applications will be 20 business days, from the day following the publication of the call in the Official Gazette of the Province.
