French cheesemakers are about to overturn centuries of tradition by ending the use of unpasteurised milk to produce camembert.

Farmers say that consumers are shunning cheese that is made according to age-old processes after a series of food scares, while overzealous health authorities have buried their industry under a mountain of red tape.

However, purists complain that cheese cannot be described as genuine camembert without the uniquely pungent goût that comes from the microbial flora in raw milk — flora now under threat from pasteurisation, thermalisation or microfiltering.

Makers of the famous camembert from the Isigny-Sainte-Mãre cooperative in No-mandy have appealed to the industry regulator to allow them to continue using the vital certificate of authenticity known as appellations d’origine contrôlée (AOC).

But the request to continue using the AOC seal is likely to be blocked amid widespread fury at what critics see as an attack on one of France’s greatest icons.

The National Institute of Appellations d’Origine Contrôlée, which awards the cherished certificates, says that the reform could signal the end of unpasteurised milk throughout the French cheese industry.

“In the past I suppose we often made cheeses with bacteria in them,” said Calude Granjon, 55, deputy director of the cooperative. “No one knew and no one minded. I don’t think people fell ill from eating them because we were in contact with bacteria and built up our immunity to them. Today, everything is different and we have to accept that.”

French fraud squad detectives carried out a recent raid on the Isigny-Sainte-Mãre cooperative to discover whether microfiltering was already under way. “They found nothing illegal because we are not using this method yet,” Mr Granjon said. “But we are going to use it come what may, because we have no choice, although we are not doing it with a light heart.”

Mr Granjon said that the change was necessary to eliminate the E. Coli bacteria that are present in between 1 per cent and 2 per cent of all unpasteurised camemberts. “We tried all sorts of ways of stopping this bacteria without changing our manufacturing process and none work,” he said.

Only 13,000 tonnes of camemberts are still manufactured according to the recipe given to Marie Harel, an inhabitant of the village of Camembert, by a priest from Brie, fleeing French Revolutionaries in 1791.

Times Recommends

• Experts baffled by vanishing sea lions
• CIA caught in a dirty and secretive war
• Double life of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab