U.S. tariffs on Canadian cheese are threatening to spoil the recent success of award-winning Canadian producers in the American market, with importers saying demand has dropped since the 50 percent duties took effect in August.
"If the price becomes too expensive and customers stop buying it, and so the cheese shop or market stops bringing it in as well, you basically lose placement," said James Hanly, a sales director for Provisions International in Vermont.
The tariffs, imposed by the Trump administration, apply to certain dairy products including cheese.
Hanly said the higher prices have caused demand for Canadian cheese to trail off, reversing momentum built by a string of major awards.
In 2024, Quebec's Fromagerie la Station won best in show at the American Cheese Society's annual competition, a feat it repeated a year later.
"It just makes American consumers and people in the industry pay attention to something that they didn't realise was there before," Hanly said.
The Gellert Global Group, a U.S.-based importer, says the duties apply to nearly $40 million in tariffs on about $80 million worth of Canadian cheese imports it handles each year.
The company has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to try to end some of the tariffs.
The levies are a major threat to Mariposa Dairy in Lindsay, Ont., which exports close to 80 percent of its product to the United States.
"We haven't got the ability to turn that off. I mean those farmers count on us to take their milk, turn it into cheese, and get it to market. We don't really have any other markets that are like the U.S. that can take that kind of volume," said Mark Anderson, CEO of Mariposa Dairy.
The company purchases milk from about 200 dairy goat farmers.
"So we're kind of forced to continue to keep our product on the shelf and find a way to work through these tariffs."
Anderson said the company is working with its farmers and distributor, the Gellert Global Group, to absorb costs rather than pass them to consumers.
"We're spreading it out so we could all take a little bit of the pain so we can last a little longer until this gets resolved," Anderson said.
He said the amount the tariffs could cost his business is "not too far off" the $40 million figure faced by the importer.
"It's phenomenal. It's not sustainable," he said.
Trump has repeatedly attacked Canada's dairy supply management system as unfair to American dairy farmers.
But Hanly argues Canada's system contributes to the quality of its cheese.
"In the U.S, it's been a race to the bottom, trying to get the maximum amount of milk at the least amount of cost, which ends up producing lower quality milk that you can't use for cheese production," he said.
"Whereas in Canada with that closed circuit, you don't see that. You see, like, family farms thriving and succeeding and knowing what they're going to make. And so I think that stability and the quality of milk is what goes into that."
Both Hanly and Anderson say they are optimistic the political tide could be turning after Democrats swept the House and Senate in the U.S. midterm elections.
Senior Democrats have said the party will work to end Trump's tariffs on allies, including Canada, when the party takes control of Congress next year.
e2gold.ca reported earlier this month that a shift in control of the U.S. Congress could change the direction of key policies like tariffs.
This story was written by the e2gold.ca newsroom from reporting by CBC News and Rich Picks Daily. Quotes are checked word for word against that reporting.