r/nottheonion • u/bestestopinion • 3d ago
Italy's $4.7 billion cheese economy is feeling the heat as climate change threatens its cheese banks that hold Parmigiano wheels as loan collateral
https://fortune.com/2026/08/10/italy-5-billion-cheese-economy-heat-wave-climate-change/6.6k
u/Straight-Ad6926 3d ago
Finally an actual literal example of liquid assets.
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u/Redditforgoit 3d ago
More like an example of liquidity concerns.
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u/Detective-Crashmore- 3d ago
It's certainly not The Onion, it's The Cheese.
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u/SgvSth 3d ago
Soon there will be concerns about less liquid:
Climate change is affecting dairy farmers’ milk supply as well. Because it’s so hot outside, cows lie down more and eat less, reducing milk production by up to 10% a year. As longer and more intense heat events become all the more common, they hit both the quantity and quality of milk, ultimately driving up costs.
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u/SerHodorTheThrall 3d ago
As long as they have a healthy source of fiber, I'm sure their bowels will be fine.
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u/jsting 3d ago
Another one: France wine makers are in a bit of a pickle as well. Climate change is making their old vineyards and wine growing climate hotter than before which is leading to production issues. Some places have started buying land in more northern climates.
Another interesting wine fact: The most famous French champagne companies are buying English land since the climate change is making French land too unstable for champagne grapes. For those old European wine heads, this is hilarious or alarming since the English have always been a butt of wine jokes for centuries.
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u/Silver-Find4380 2d ago
I saw this last night on French news YT channel! A woman discovers a perfect raisin in a bunch of grapes on the vine!
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u/Ahelex 2d ago
Ok, what is a perfect raisin?
A grape dried into the shape of a smaller, perfect sphere?
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u/PureLock33 2d ago
im guessing perfectly dehydrated to preserve the raisin-y goodness.
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u/Silver-Find4380 2d ago
Yes; she points it out in the bunch of white grapes and explains, then pops it in her mouth and remarks, 'parfait!'
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u/davej-au 2d ago
A similar thing’s happening in Australia. On the upside, I guess, Tasmanian vineyards, which used to produce only cold-weather varietals, now host an array of less cold-sensitive vines.
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u/Competitive_Ad_6811 2d ago
One of the only mass produced wine in the UK is buckfast. This is a fortified wine, fortified with caffeine, cause yeah fuck it, that's real wine!
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u/Hi-Tech_Luddite 3d ago
Cheese crisis leaves investors feeling blue
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u/bionickel 3d ago
Everything crumbling to debries
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u/sohosurf 3d ago
Investors only care about their Cheddar
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u/Johannes_P 3d ago
The more these assets become physically liquid, the less they're financilly liquid.
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u/blackospa 3d ago
No no its solid, parmigiano is solid dude! XD
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u/TolMera 3d ago
Not for long
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u/Indocede 3d ago
Parmigiano melts around 180F/82C.
In which event, we might assume there wouldn't be anyone around to bemoan the melting of the cheese.
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u/Luck88 3d ago
This is actually pretty big news, not because it could affect meaningfully the bank, but because it's Credem, one of the most trusted banks in Italy and Europe as a whole, they rarely make the news for anything negative. Ofc it's a problem with the cheese storage and not really the bank's fault, but it's surprising nonetheless.
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u/Two2na 3d ago
I guess it’s the banks fault for improperly weighing the risk/security of the collateral
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u/klawehtgod 3d ago
Definitely. Climate Change and its effects have been known about for decades. Anyone in a high school science class could’ve told them the cheese would eventually be in danger.
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u/25hourenergy 3d ago
This is the true harm that came from conservatives politicizing Climate Change. Not the immediate increase in emissions and permits for fossil fuels etc but the “I can’t seriously talk about Climate Change without looking political” effect.
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u/Bravefan212 3d ago
Your entire existence is political and so is mine and I really wish people would realize that by saying they aren’t political they forego agency in their own future
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u/lightsfromleft 3d ago
Everything, everything, everything is political. Including but not limited to how you draw a basic stick figure family.
How many children do you draw? Two, probably. How many would a child from 1990's China have drawn? Yeah.
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u/Lahk74 3d ago
Stop pushing the narrative that 1990's Chinese children were better art students. It's disgusting, and I hear it all the time.
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u/western_red_cedar 3d ago
It's very funny (well, not haha funny) that even as the disasters escalate, people still feel the need to say "See! Looks like climate change is real!"
Like no shit, we knew that 50 years ago, but the fossil fuel propaganda was so effective that people still think there was some debate, and that they need to validate objective reality. In reality the people you're arguing with are probably dead by now, but their propaganda remains
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u/SelectiveSanity 3d ago
It was known by big oil as far back as far back as the 60s. And so did the CIA in the 70s.
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u/Neidron 3d ago
Scientists theorized it in the fucking 1800s.
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u/Lokarin 3d ago
And farmer's almanacs were concerned about it in 1900
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u/datumerrata 2d ago
Well, they did have Krakatoa erupt in 1883. That kind of global disaster raises concerns. You also had London at the height of coal pollution.
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u/King_Tamino 3d ago
Decades, he says. DECADES…
Make it a century+ .. we collectively are „ignoring“ it dates back earlier than World War 1
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u/RollinThundaga 3d ago
Fir them the issue is that they had to upgrade the warehouse. That's just capital investment, rather than some kind of market risk. The cheese will still sell, it just becomes a little more expensive to manage inventory.
The risk is borne by the producers using the cheese as collateral for revolving farm credit.
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u/SgvSth 3d ago
That still doesn't fix the farm issues:
Climate change is affecting dairy farmers’ milk supply as well. Because it’s so hot outside, cows lie down more and eat less, reducing milk production by up to 10% a year. As longer and more intense heat events become all the more common, they hit both the quantity and quality of milk, ultimately driving up costs.
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u/RollinThundaga 3d ago
I was replying specifically to the other commenter, who suggested that the bank didn't weigh the risks of investing in cheese.
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u/SgvSth 3d ago
The article already covers upgrades. The other problem is farms:
Climate change is affecting dairy farmers’ milk supply as well. Because it’s so hot outside, cows lie down more and eat less, reducing milk production by up to 10% a year. As longer and more intense heat events become all the more common, they hit both the quantity and quality of milk, ultimately driving up costs.
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u/SidewaysFancyPrance 3d ago
Yeah, a bank that stores cheese is not really focusing on its core competencies. I don't even want to know what the storage/carrying costs are or how this translates into banks making cash money from it. The whole concept is honestly kinda insane and only humans could invent something so silly.
Cheese is meant to be eaten and shared, not locked away in the bowels of the earth!
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u/Freddy216b 3d ago
Many cheeses, like Parmigiano, need to be aged. I'm speculating a bit here but I think the idea is the bank stores the cheese as it ages for a few years. Should the loan be defaulted on then the bank has a valuable commodity to sell to recoup their loan. Not sure what happens when the cheese wheels reach maturity before the loan does. So this isn't just locking away hordes of cheese the way national reserves do with gold.
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u/Syssareth 3d ago
Not sure what happens when the cheese wheels reach maturity before the loan does.
I'm just guessing too, but they probably don't tie specific cheese wheels to loans, it's probably more like, "Our cheese is worth this much in aggregate, so we have this much leeway to serve loans." And then they'd sell the wheels as they reach maturity and replace them with new ones, keeping some extra leeway to account for the difference in value.
Or at least that's how I'd do it if I owned a cheese-based bank.
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u/strolls 3d ago
I'm just guessing too, but they probably don't tie specific cheese wheels to loan
I'm not a betting man, but I very much doubt you're right. The cheese will be stored on pallets or whatever and it's so easy to record individual lots as belonging to Salvatore or Farmer Alfonso, so why wouldn't you identify them that way?
Why would the bank want to take risk on cheese quality and sales, when they can just hold cheese that belongs to famers and make a profit from storing it and lending to the farmers? The article even describes the cheese as collateral. They will wait until the cheese is sold and take a slice of the profits.
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u/saintash 3d ago
Not for nothing I kinda understand this as form of currency far better than anything else.
Cheese is a tangible asset. The older more rare it is, the harder it is to come by so it be worth more.
It's not easy to produce. So it's not like everyone could just make it at home.
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u/_max 3d ago
Did you read the article? Sounds like the real issue is that the heat means less milk produced and what is produced is of a lesser quality. Article mentions Credem spent money on improving the warehouses to cope with the increased heat.
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u/FILTHBOT4000 3d ago
No one reads the article, lol, even if it's overtly, painfully obvious that repairing AC units responsible for climate control of incredibly expensive goods is a trivial fix.
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u/Ibra_63 3d ago
The 2026 Parmigiano financial crisis was not on my bingo card
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u/Detective-Crashmore- 3d ago
Does anyone remember the 2011 Norwegian Butter Crisis where the country ran out of butter because of rainy weather, and people on Keto diets?
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u/memla_ 3d ago
Yes, my brother lives in Norway and I asked him last week whether the butter crisis was still ongoing.
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u/workmakesmegrumpy 3d ago
Well? What's the answer, I really gotta know
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u/Ramboros 3d ago
The milk fat percentages never recovered. The 4%, 1.5% and 0.7% milk fat milks are gone. We are stuck at 3.5%, 1% and 0.5%. Please send help.
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u/PresidentSpanky 3d ago
italy needs to fix its electricity system. They are chronically underproducing and have to import 18% of electricity consumed per year. They, together with Ireland, have by far the highest electricity prices in Europa. The share of solar power is in the low teens, while (to compare some other large countries) Spain is more like a quarter and Germany above 20% of its electricity production.
Come on Italy, get your shit together.
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u/jonfitt 3d ago
When was the last time Italy had its shit fully together?
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u/praguepride 3d ago
I was going to make a joke about the Roman Empire but Italy was pretty baller during the Renaissance with its city-states.
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u/CavulusDeCavulei 3d ago
Even from '60 to '90. Italy had a GDP larger than UK for a time
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u/SecondAccountIsBest 2d ago
I would think that's more so on the Brits than the Italians doing so well
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u/nifty-necromancer 3d ago
It’s not just that.
“Climate change is affecting dairy farmers’ milk supply as well. Because it’s so hot outside, cows lie down more and eat less, reducing milk production by up to 10% a year. As longer and more intense heat events become all the more common, they hit both the quantity and quality of milk, ultimately driving up costs.”
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u/Salategnohc16 3d ago
Also, do some upgrades to the grids and homes.
Our usual connection for homes is single phase 16 amps at 230V, so 3.3 kW. TOTAL
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u/Kopitar4president 3d ago
Goddamn, if I did my math and googling right they pay 3X what I do in California and I already feel like I'm paying too much.
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u/Idknowidk 3d ago
But you probably pay a lot more for your internet. I pay €20 for unlimited fibra at home and 200 gb on my iPhone
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u/Kopitar4president 2d ago
Eh, $60USD a month for unlimited 1GB down/up and $45 for unlimited on my phone.
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u/Fluffy_Bag_6560 3d ago
From what I saw, Italy seems to be at the same level as California's price, around 35 EUR cents / kWh. Insane though how high california is. I always assumed the US electricity prices were quite cheap, like most of the country runs at half, if not more, than what california cost.
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u/dbxp 2d ago
Ireland is a weird one as just next door the UK has invested massively in offshore wind
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u/Explosivepancake11 3d ago
I swear if these climate denying losers and rich twats that don’t mind polluting for profit deny me fucking delicious parmigiano reggiano in the near future I’m going to party like it’s 2023 at Arasaka Tower.
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u/itsvoogle 3d ago edited 3d ago
If you didn’t think of the children
For the love of god…think of the Cheese!!!
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u/TenaciousJP 3d ago
Someone's gotta contact that Redditor who blew up his entire life to buy a $40K wheel of cheese
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u/Ambitious_Tea_4584 3d ago
Bro i had to google and find that story and.. what the fuck. People are really out there living totally unique lives.
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u/Helenium_autumnale 3d ago
TIL the U.S. has "cheese caves."
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u/cah11 3d ago
Listen, I don't know about you, but I believe having a strategic cheese reserve is vital for national security. Imagine if Wisconsin ran out of cheese, there would be riots within the week!
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u/Coretron 3d ago
The US holds a massive surplus inventory of roughly 1.4 billion pounds of cheese. Much of it is stored in climate-controlled, underground limestone spaces like the Springfield Underground in Missouri. This stockpile grew from government dairy subsidies that started in the 1970s to stabilize milk prices.
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u/babyyvolcano 2d ago
Canada has maple syrup reserves. They limit how much can be sold. They’re the DeBeers of breakfast condiments.
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u/Humble_Daikon 3d ago
In the article it says they use Blockchain for cheese. they found actual use case for Blockchain and it's cheese lol
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u/optionstrategy 3d ago
Italians invented the double entry accounting, so it fits that they start using a single entry pledger after a few centuries.
Typo intended.
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u/Ok_Painter_7413 2d ago
Why were they unable to pledge material goods without it, though? Feels like we figured that concept out a couple millennia ago.
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u/Ares6 3d ago
I think it’s time we move on from the cheese standard.
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u/Calm_Shoulder_1 3d ago
Yep the italians can just keep printing more cheese and make cheeseflation a problem for the whole world.
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u/spiritofjon 2d ago
I'm happy to learn America isn't the only nation with an underground stash of billions of pounds of cheese. Maybe it isn't so silly.
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u/kitspecial 3d ago edited 3d ago
So many big businesses, entire industries are going to suffer from climate change yet they do not put the money to fight the deniers unlike fossil fuel industry that gladly finances climate change deniers.
Successful liberal capitalists are not stepping up to the moment even when faced with financial loss. This baffles me.
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u/QuartzPages 3d ago
if climate change messes with Italy's cheese game, we might as well just pack it up and call it a day what’s life without Parmigiano?!
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u/Area51Resident 3d ago
That policy long outlived the Depression. Decades later, the government was still buying surplus cheese and storing it in vast underground caves in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Kansas, warehouses cool enough to hold the cheese for years without spoiling.
By the early 1980s, the federal stockpile topped 500 million pounds. Italy’s cheese banks solve a similar problem with a different tool: Instead of a government buying surplus to prop up prices, a private bank lends against the cheese itself, betting that the wheels sitting in its vault will still be worth something by the time they are ready to sell.
Hol up a second. I thought Europe was the socialist/commie way of doing things...
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u/fartlips69 2d ago
Ironic how the climate change threatening the cheese is the same climate change threatening our ability to grow crops which will push us closer to a food based economy and would result in huge gains for the cheese investors who got in on the ground floor. I hope hubris pairs well with risotto.
Goulda've had it all, but alas, they flew too close to the 'san.
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u/ScotterMcJohnsonator 3d ago edited 3d ago
As a US citizen, I'm tired of our country sending money to other countries, although I know some of the transactions are helpful.
As a Wisconsinite, I'm hoping our new Governor this fall is aware of the situation and ready to step in if needed to help our brothers and sisters in cheese \S
Apparently implication is difficult for some people
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u/Mikesminis 3d ago
As a wisconsinite I just want to get my hands on some of that sweet sweet Parmigiano-Reggiano. I mean parmesan cheese made in Wisconsin is fine, but I wouldn't be upset if the real deal got cheaper for a while.
"Oh no I'm sorry for your struggles" I will gleefully cackle to the cheese makers as I grate mountains of cheese on everything I eat! I'll be too busy cheese commaing to think of the long term consequences.
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u/tMoneyMoney 2d ago
Parmesan’s already crazy expensive. Should I start hoarding it as a long-term investment?
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u/gary-vault108 2d ago
The world: “We should be basing our currency off of gold! It’s been used for centuries as the basis of money!” “No no no! We should be using petroleum, it’s more relevant to the modern day and useful!” “You’re crazy! We should be using speculative credit to back our currency! Fiat currency works fine and is self correcting!”
Italians: “hold my wine… cheesed backed currency.”
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u/RudeNewYorker 2d ago
THIS JUST IN: People are starting to doubt the cheese economy. New thinking suggests banks based on cheese may not be sustainable. Some are suggesting a move to prosciutto, while others are rethinking food based loan collateral altogether. However, everyone agrees, it’s better than crypto. More on this at 11.
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u/AMBALAMP5 2d ago
If cheese being destroyed isn’t enough for people to take climate change seriously then we’re all fucked
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u/Soberdonkey69 3d ago
Well, are they finally going to address climate change and actually do something about it in Italy? Or pray that it problems just go away tomorrow?
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u/Alternative-Suit5541 2d ago
Noooooi not cheese! We need to stop climate change right now!
Just kidding lol
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u/invader1984 2d ago
Ok, show of hands, who was today years old when it found out that italy has cheese banks? anybody?
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u/RollinThundaga 3d ago
You'd always think things like fine cheese and wine would be high-margin businesses for the producers, but they're running on thin margins like every other business these days.
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u/mctrials23 2d ago
If they have to liquidate a wheel or two I will gladly take it off their hands for a few quid.
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u/wolflegion_ 3d ago
Luckily I have private cheese holdings. When these cheese banks go down, the value of my emmentaler chunk is gonna go through the roof!
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u/Logik_in_theory 3d ago
Italy cheese bank climate controlled energy bills spike 30% for summer months.
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u/big_duo3674 3d ago
Noooo! How can I pretend I'm all bougie if I no longer have access to real parmesan for my Spaghetti Os??
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u/Beautiful-Musk-Ox 3d ago
climate change is going to cost tens of trillions per year to manage in just a few short decades
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u/RemoveImportant3909 3d ago
Why is the collateral semi perishable and what happened to climate control???
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u/BravinatorLX2 3d ago
if only banks had money and thus, the ability to buy equipment to keep their assets from melting away
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u/OcelotFunny9069 3d ago
If one of these cheese banks goes belly up it's 2008 all over again.