Washington cheese makers and retailers are protesting a proposed change to state law which would require them to trash cut-into soft cheeses after seven days.
The state periodically revises its food code to bring its provisions in line with scientific knowledge and federal standards. Many of the drafted revisions now being reviewed are seemingly innocuous: If the revisions are approved, raw oysters and undercooked meat will no longer be allowed to appear on children's menus, and sellers of foraged mushrooms will have to provide documentation that their product isn't toxic. But the date-marking clauses have spawned a noisy clamor in the state's cheese community.
"Everybody is definitely very nervous about it," says Sheri LaVigne of The Calf and Kid. "I'm really, really scared about what we'd have to do."
The new rule doesn't apply only to cheese: Deli meats, pans of lasagna and many other foods requiring refrigeration would all have to be tossed a week after being opened, cut, sliced or repackaged. According to Joe Graham, the Department of Health's food safety program technical lead, about two-thirds of states have adopted similar measures.
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