Did you know that World War II almost killed British cheesemaking?

A block of Cheddar
(Photo: forcesnews.com)

Hot on the heels of our previous article (The cheeses of Normandy in- and outside of World War II) , here’s another cheese-related topic before we return to our more traditional war-oriented topics. World War II took a sore toll on the economies of its belligerent nations, with many consumer goods taking a backseat to war production. Food as well as many other products were rationed, and many countries took a long time to recover after the war. British cheesemaking in particular, an old and rich tradition, was almost killed by the war.
 
Cheese is an important wartime foodstuff: many types keep for a very long time, it’s easy to transport (to the troops on the frontline), and producing it does not involve killing animals. The British government decided to nationalize and streamline cheese production during the war. A single specific recipe for Cheddar was chosen for its efficiency of production and handed out to factories, while milk shipments to other cheesemakers have almost completely stopped.

Traditional (non-government) Cheddar stored in a cave in Cheddar Gorge, England (Photo: Gary Bembridge)

The resulting cheese, nicknamed “Government Cheddar,” received a major boost by propaganda films shown in cinemas, which was where many people got their news from, and informational leaflets. Film reels such as Choose Cheese in 1940 used spurious logic and referred to unverified experiments, claiming that cheese makes children grow bigger and stronger, protects against infections, and even improves vision in the dark. Recipes ranging from grilled cheese to the mouthwatering cauliflower cheese (literally a large piece of cauliflower with molten cheese dumped on it) popularized the consumption of cheese.

Cheese propaganda from wartime Britain with modern commentary from the Imperial War Museums

Cheese rationing started in May 1941 with an allowance of 1 ounce of cheese per person per week. This was quickly raised to 2 ounces the next month, apparently partly due to shopkeeper complaints that cutting such tiny pieces was wasteful.

 
By the end of the war, the British populace was sick of Cheddar, and cheeses such as Cheshire, Wensleydale, Stilton, Lancashire or Double Gloucester had gone almost extinct. There were over 3,500 independent cheesemakers in Britian before World War I; by 1945, there were fewer than 100, and the cheesemaking industry took several decades to get back on its feet. 

Traditional farmhouse cheese production like this almost entirely disappeared from Britain during the war (Photo: thecourtyarddairy.co.uk)
 

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