SPAIN/GERMANY &#8211, Spanish cheesemakers want to sell more of their products in northern Europe, says the German advertising agency which has been hired to start a campaign for the Iberian cheeses.

Unlike the Dutch, who prefer to focus on a small number of their cheeses when marketing abroad, the Spaniards are planning to win over northern Europeans with a vast selection of different cheeses available from their country.

Germany is currently considered the market with most potential for Spanish cheese, and a new promotional campaign will target the country’s speciality, shops, delicatessens, hotels and restaurants.

Spain produces a wide variety of different cheeses because it still boasts 950 separate cheesemaking plants &#8211, many of them very small. Annual production last year was 220,000 tonnes of 128 different varieties of cheese &#8211, only 36 of which were made from pure cows’ milk.

In fact, Spain’s speciality is ‘mixed cheese’, often made with a blend of cows’, sheep’s and goats’ milks. Such products make up 50% of total output. Otherwise, there are 33 major cheeses produced from pure goats’ milk and 19 made from sheep’s milk.

Mainly because of regional drought, Spanish production of milk, and consequently cheese, dropped by nearly 3% between 1999 and 2000. This has also affected cheese exports which, up until 1999, had climbed steadily over a ten year period from 22,000 to 32,000 tonnes.

Typical of the cheeses being promoted in the cheesemakers’ new campaign is the Torta del Cesar, a source-assured (Demoninacion de Origen) soft slicing cheese from the Extremadura region near Portugal. It is made exclusively from the milk of Merino sheep and with a vegetable rennet substitute. Another cheese to be launched this autumn is the Queserias Villavieja, a 45% fat goats’ milk cheese, into which is mixed with red wine.

The strictly-imposed Denominacion de Origen (DO) classification is designed to back the quality image of many top Spanish cheeses. It not only guarantees the source of the product but also the way in which it is made.

The DO regulations include a positive list for livestock housing standards and feed used, with regular inspections conducted by a special council. Other standards applied before the DO description is awarded include certain hygiene levels during milk production, the ripening procedure and length of maturation for cheese, its weight, form and composition.