Three months in, the 25 percent duty that landed on a long list of European cheeses last October hasn't gone away, and it isn't going to be a one-quarter story. We're opening the new year with a look at how it's actually sitting with members, because the numbers on a tariff schedule and the numbers on your invoice tell different stories.
For members who import — specialty retailers building a case around Alpine and Continental styles, distributors with standing orders for aged wheels that don't have a domestic equivalent — the duty landed on top of an already thin specialty margin. A few members told us over the holidays that they absorbed the increase through December because pulling a signature cheese from the case during peak season was worse than eating the cost. That calculus gets harder in a slower month like this one.
What we're hearing, and what we're not
We're not hearing a uniform story. Members closer to the retail counter say customers have mostly kept buying the cheeses they know, even at a higher shelf price — loyalty to a specific wheel or a specific affineur runs deep. Members further up the supply chain, closer to wholesale volume, are reporting the opposite: buyers substituting toward domestic or non-EU imports where a substitute exists, and renegotiating standing contracts where it doesn't.
Domestic producers are, unsurprisingly, split on how they feel about a tariff line that's nominally supposed to help them. A handful of members who make styles that compete directly with the affected imports have seen modest order growth. Most others make something different enough that a European cheddar's fortunes have no bearing on theirs, and they'd rather see the underlying trade dispute resolved than benefit from a side effect of it.
Where this goes next, and how to have a voice in it
Trade actions like this one get reviewed periodically, and a formal comment window on a possible expansion of the covered product list is open right now, closing in the middle of this month. That's exactly when member input carries the most weight — a specific example of a contract disrupted or a product line dropped is worth more to policymakers than a general objection, and a narrow window like this one won't stay open long. The Membership & Outreach Committee has been collecting exactly those examples since November and is preparing to submit formal comment before the window closes.
If you import or distribute affected cheeses and haven't told us how the duty has hit your business, we'd like to hear it — specifics on the product, the volume, and the dollar impact are the most useful thing you can send. If you're a domestic producer with a view either way, that counts too; this isn't a one-sided file. Reach the committee through your member portal, and if you want the background on how this kind of tariff action gets triggered and reviewed in the first place, the advocacy resources section of the portal has a plain-language explainer we put together back when the duty first took effect.
We don't expect a resolution this quarter. We do expect to keep this on the desk until there is one, and to keep members posted as the comment window and any decision that follows it move forward.
The International Cheese Federation (ICF) and More Cheese are entirely fictional. This post is demonstration content created for MemberJunction. All people, organizations, events, courses, certifications, figures, and quotations in it are invented, and nothing here represents a real association, a real business, a real person, or real professional advice.