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US supermarket sparks outcry over French cheese map that stinks

The Local France
The Local France - [email protected]
US supermarket sparks outcry over French cheese map that stinks
Jol Ito/Flickr

Everyone knows you shouldn't mess with the French and their food. But unfortunately for one US supermarket, it seems they didn't get the memo.

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It was upmarket US supermarket chain Whole Foods that sparked the ire of the French recently, with a map that attempted to show the origin of French cheeses.
 
The problem, however, was that it was full of mistakes.  
 
And unfortunately for Whole Foods, the errors didn't escape the eagle eye of one proud Frenchman known as Mikaël on Twitter. 
 
The French expat, who has been living in the US for a year, exposed the supermarket chain by posting a photo of the map online (see below). 
 
Among the maps (many) mistakes, Camembert which actually hails from Normandy in north-west France is shown as coming from the southern city of Montpellier.
 
Even P'tit basque cheese, named after the area it comes from - France's Basque region in the Pyrenees - is incorrectly plotted in the western Pays de la Loire region. 
 
While the blue cheese from the rural, mountainous area south-west of Clermont Ferrand, Bleu d'Auvergne, according to the map comes from the southern port city of Marseille. 
 
Contacted by the Huffington Post, the US chain said that the map will be removed from stores and corrected. 
 
In the meantime, some web users took the time to suggest their own (more detailed) maps of French cheeses. 
 

While others simply expressed their disappointment with the chain (as well as their love of cheese). 

Some, however, chose to see the positive in the situation. 

 

 
 

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