A ban on unpasteurized milk products from France, Switzerland, Italy and Spain means Canadians can’t get their hands on Mont d’Or this year. The soft cow’s milk cheese from the Jura Mountains near the Swiss Alps is wrapped in spruce bark that’s traditionally baked and eaten like a fondue over the Christmas holidays. (Toronto Star)

Talking point: Afrim Pristine, the owner of Cheese Boutique in Toronto, said he typically sells between 800 and 1,000 pieces of the cheese this time of year. This season, he’s had to explain to some 300 customers that a virus called Lumpy Skin Disease has kept Mont d’Or from entering the country. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has had a ban on potentially affected raw milk products since mid-2025 to avoid the virus, which can be transmitted by flies, from spreading to cattle and buffalo in Canada. Pristine recommends a pasteurized cheese from France’s Savoie region as an alternative, but, he admits, it lacks some of Mont d’Or’s distinctive “funk.”