Best part is it's not "the blockchain" allowing the entire supply chain all the way to end consumer verify the cheese is genuine product. Instead it's a simple near field communication chip and decades old public key digital signature technology. Straight forward methods for an original maker to sign their product with an encrypted signature and the real technology revolution was a material one involving advancements in manufacturing technology that enabled the creation of the physical tag.

Sorry. I just find it too funny after the decade of blockchain hysteria. Personally I've had a fascination with the progress made with near field communication SOCs. Current generation NFC chips the size of a grain of rice are fully featured systems on a chip with a modem, cpu, ram, up to a full megabyte of rom, and a cryptographic co-processor that encrypts commutation to prevent man-in-the-middle or snooping. Advances in silicon semiconductor fabrication have enabled fully featured NFC SOCs to be miniaturized to the size of a gain of sand with manufacturing economies of scale brining their cost down to a few cents each.

Full, uncritical, support to the Italians for taking drastic action against the scourge of the plastic waste product Americans insist on calling "parmesan".

The only way to combat the plastic waste is to add silicon waste to cheese. As long as whatever Americans pass as parmesan gets its rightful place (not manufactured at all), i will support.

american also counterfait champagne,and gruyere. they cant even use a original name they need surf on sucess of others.....

The Italians and their consequences have been a disaster for the human race

Parmigiano Reggiano doesn't have packaging per se. It travels very well because of the crust, and because it's a fuck-you heavy wheel of aged cheese, as long as the temperature doesn't get too high. The Parmigiano Reggiano consortium is living proof of a good idea ruined by the profit motive, and becoming the standard/goal for any other smaller, consortia. So yeah, very likely they just put the microchip somewhere in the crust (which nobody eats and is only good to put in sauce/stock)

Outside the EU, the name "Parmesan" can legally be used for similar cheeses, with only the full Italian name unambiguously referring to PDO Parmigiano Reggiano.

It's not about taste, but copyright. A specific region can only make their traditional food/drink and so they can keep the prices high. Similarly it's only legal to name sparkling wine champagne if it came from the Champagne region.