WASHINGTON – Numerous members of the dairy industry are pushing for the establishment of an absolute definition for the term “natural cheese.”

Trade associations and dairy companies joined up to send Congress members a letter in support of the Codifying Useful Regulatory Definition (CURD) Act, a piece of bipartisan legislation that would follow the US dairy industry’s lead in using the term “natural cheese” to align with international standards of cheesemaking.

The letter, sent Sept. 12, emphasized that the term has been used for more than 50 years and is “well established and understood by the American consumer.” The dairy industry defines “natural cheese” as products made through historical cheesemaking practices, differentiating them from the practices used to make process cheese.

Co-signed by the International Dairy Foods Association, Wisconsin Cheese Makers Association, National Milk Producers Federation, Northeast Dairy Foods & Suppliers Associations, Agri-Mark, Hilmar, Sargento Foods and California Dairy Institute, the letter said the meaning of “natural cheese” should be codified in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The organizations agreed that a separate food industry regulation debate about using the term “natural” on food packaging took on a different meaning, describing attributes of a specific food product.

“In contrast, our industry has used the term ‘natural cheese’ for decades in the US and hundreds of years in Europe to describe a particular category of cheese,” the industry members wrote in the letter.

“Natural cheese,” they submitted, should be defined clearly to “maintain transparency and consistency for consumers so that they may differentiate” between products sold at retail locations.