Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- French makers of Roquefort, the salty, blue-veined cheese, say U.S. sales will completely dry up after they were slapped with a 300 percent import duty.

The increased U.S. levy came on Jan. 16 in retaliation for the European Union’s long-standing ban on hormone-treated beef. The sharp-tasting Roquefort, made from sheep’s milk in the eponymous region in the south of France, will become too expensive for most U.S. consumers, its producers said. The U.S. is the third-biggest export market for the cheese.

“It’s totally unjust that they picked on us like that,” said Robert Glandieres, the chairman of the Union of Roquefort producers that includes sheep milk farmers as well as cheese makers. “For us it’s effectively an embargo.”

The World Trade Organization authorized the U.S. and Canada to levy duties on $116.8 million of European imports including Roquefort, textiles and truffles after the EU failed to lift a moratorium on beef from hormone-treated animals. The WTO allowed the retaliation since the EU hadn’t scientifically proved that the beef posed a cancer risk for consumers.

France, together with the EU, will take the case back to the WTO, French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier said today in Parliament, ruling out any changes to the beef ban.

“Europe is very attached to its eating habits,” Barnier said. “We will absolutely not stray from our policy.”

French Gastronomy

Roquefort cheese makers export about 420 tons a year, or 2.5 percent of their total production, to the U.S., according to Thierry Zurcher, the director of Roquefort Societe, which accounts about two thirds of the region’s output. That comes to about 6 million euros ($7.9 million) in annual sales, which will now be almost entirely lost, he said.

“It’s a symbol of French gastronomy that’s being attacked,” Zurcher said in a telephone interview. “We will have to leave the U.S. market. There is no way people will be willing to pay over $100 for a kilo of cheese.”

The crumbly cheese of slightly moist consistency is characterized by green veins of mold, and is made exclusively from ewes’ milk that is left to ripen in the caves of Mont Combalou in Roquefort-sur-Soulzon.

The Roquefort legend has it that the cheese was discovered when a young shepherd eating his lunch of bread and ewes’ milk cheese saw a beautiful girl and abandoned his meal in a nearby cave to meet her. When he returned a few days later, the mold Penicillium Roqueforti had transformed his plain cheese into Roquefort.

Keeping a Foothold

Roquefort makers have been fighting to keep a foothold in the U.S. market after import duties were raised to 100 percent in 1999. The cheese makers accepted lower margins just to stay in the country, Zurcher said.

The new levy will make the sale of the cheese virtually impossible in the U.S. apart from at select gourmet restaurants and a handful of luxury cheese vendors, the producers say. The U.S. is currently the region’s third-biggest export market after Spain and Germany, and on par with Belgium.

“It looks small, but it’s not at all negligible for a small industry like ours,” Glandieres said. “The problem is that once you leave a market, it’s incredibly difficult to enter it again.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ladka Bauerova in Paris at lbauerova@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: January 20, 2009 09:50 EST