The aisles of American supermarkets contain what is named Feta cheese, is branded as Feta cheese, and pretends to be real Greek Feta cheese – and to an unsuspecting consumer seems to be Feta cheese.
But it’s not made in Greece, and it doesn’t taste like real feta. Buyer beware, caveat emptor. Most American Feta is produced in Wisconsin and California and you’d be better off eating the packaging it comes in.
Real Greek feta is traditionally made from sheep’s milk or a mixture of sheep’s and goat’s milk. Only cheeses produced this way in specific regions of Greece can be labeled as Feta under European Union regulations.
The United States believes this is an unfair trade practice. In a post on ‘X’, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer wrote that the case of Greece and the EU protecting Feta was one of the “10 craziest foreign trade barriers facing American exporters.”
The post reads: “Within the European Union, the term ‘feta’ can only be used for cheese produced in Greece, since the EU claims that certain cheese terms are connected to specific places in Europe. However, there is no specific place named ‘Feta’ in Europe! And the EU forces other countries to follow this same nonsensical rule. This locks American producers out of key markets merely for using certain cheese terms,” Greer wrote on X.
Sounds like it’s time for Greek cheese companies to start making it cheddar and export it to other countries to take a bite out of Wisconsin, a state which makes great cheese, except for Feta.
America Feta – that’s an oxymoron – is drier and milder and has a metallic tang and is crumbly styrofoam compared to real creamy Greek feta that is strained. Greeks have been through this with Chobani yogurt in the U.S. often confused with real Greek yogurt, although it’s not.
The reason Greek Feta has the EU Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) is because it’s genuine and unique, aged in brine and made only in specific regions and is pure. American Feta is often mass produced and pre-crumbled with additives and doesn’t have that briny taste.
Elena Paravantes, a Greek-American registered dietitian, nutrition expert, and author specializing in the authentic Mediterranean diet has written guidelines for real Feta on her site Olive Tomato,
Rule #1: Make sure it only contains sheep’s milk (and maybe some goat’s milk), rennet and salt.
“It should not contain anything else, nor should it contain cow’s milk. Feta made with cow’s milk can crumble easily (that’s not a good thing), may develop a sour taste and does not leave a pleasant aftertaste. Also it is more likely to become mushy and have a bad odor.”
That’s what the U.S. wants to compete with real Greek Feta. Maybe losing another World Baseball Classic – this time to Venezuela! – has left a bitter taste, much like eating American Feta.
But the U.S. is right to push for competition if Greece takes this lying down, as Greek companies largely ceded the yogurt market by failing to market real Greek yogurt until it was too late and the same has happened with Feta.
The U.S. wants the EU to give up its PDO, claiming the system undermines American producers’ access to international markets and wants Feta and other goods to be generic instead of having an origin.
“Its name is not generic and cannot be used arbitrarily by other countries,” Greek industry officials said earlier, citing a 2022 European Court ruling against Denmark for exporting cheese labeled as “feta” outside the EU.
Feta, a protected EU trademark since 2022, has been made in Greece for more than 6,000 years and is embedded in the country’s agricultural and culinary heritage. A small dairy cooperative in the mountainous town of Kalavrita, made up of 1,200 local stock breeders, alone produces 5,000 tons of feta annually, supplying both the domestic market and overseas buyers, the newspaper To Vima noted in 2025.
The U.S. position is that Feta is a generic term, much the same way that Parmesan has become, even though that’s an Italian delicacy and every other product is inferior. Ask an Italian.
There’s a simple answer to this. Countries have a right to claim the uniqueness of their special products, especially those that are symbolic. There’s no Greek cheddar being sold in Wisconsin and you’ll never seek a Greek bourbon because that’s properly American, and mostly Kentucky.
That’s what was written on Reddit a few months ago by someone with the handle jigsawsupport. “Every time this comes up and the Yanks get pissy, I remind them that if origin doesn’t matter anymore, then other countries could churn out ‘Kentucky Bourbon’ and other similar American goods, but somehow that is completely different,” the post said of the battle.
As the old saying goes, “You can’t legislate taste,” and while American Feta is plainly inferior, Greek companies would take a hurting in the market because people prefer cheap stuff compared to the real thing, so Greek Feta makers can’t rely simply on making a better product as a convincer, as cheesy as that sounds to say.
This goes both ways. Sinners Pizza in the anarchist stronghold of Exarchia in Athens has picked up a following for selling New York pizza and the best revenge would be if they put Feta on it. Greek Feta.