Here's Why Cheese Is More Expensive In Canada Than In The US

Traveling the world is a major life goal for many, with experiencing the cultures of different countries seen as being a thrilling adventure. Many parts of the globe have vastly different societies compared to the U.S., so the opportunity for education, exploration, and excitement is immense.

A big part of traveling is sampling new cuisines. Whether that be Cambodia's fried spider, live octopus in South Korea, or even America's very own brain sandwiches (via Reader's Digest), diets vary dramatically depending on where in the world you're standing. While plenty of food discoveries border on bizarre, nothing is more alarming than Canada's approach to cheese.

Cheese is a commodity available in huge quantities and varieties in the U.S. and many other places in the world, but the situation in Canada is considerably more restricted. According to Mental Floss, Canada's government greatly controls cheese manufacturing, which limits the incentive for competition and has had a massive impact on costs.

Canada's expensive cheese is intended to help farmers

Even though in the U.S. you could bathe in the salty warmness of melted cheese, you have to be significantly more restrained in Canada. That's because the cheese in Canada can be more expensive than in the U.S. as a result of official methods for controlling dairy products and supporting farmers.

National Observer explains that after World War II, milk prices in Canada plummeted, meaning farmers were struggling to make money. To tackle the problem, the Canadian government eventually deployed a supply management system that capped the amount of milk farmers could produce. It also fixed milk prices so that farmers were guaranteed a certain amount, and implemented high import tariffs on cheeses from outside of Canada.

This enables dairy farmers to make more money directly from consumers but can leave customers paying higher prices for production costs — such as for fertilizer, energy, and animal feed (via CBC News). Unsurprisingly, this leads to people attempting to bypass the high costs, with Mental Floss noting the smuggling of cheese into Canada as one of the side effects (even by police officers).