Serra cheese is admired in Portugal as a unique culinary delicacy. And rightly so. It is an artisanal product with an unforgettable taste, produced with the precious milk of the Bordaleira sheep that a group of dedicated shepherds zealously guard in Serra da Estrela, about 2,000 meters above sea level.

One day, Serra cheese may be consumed with admiration in every corner of the world. But for that day to come, we need to build two pillars.

The first pillar is the creation of the Serra da Estrela cheese as a recognized brand outside the country. For this, producers need to pool the resources they dedicate to promotion into a common budget that can be used to promote the cheese across borders. Given its quality and scarcity, the Serra da Estrela cheese should be sold as a luxury product. For this to happen, it is necessary to develop an appropriate marketing strategy. A possible promotion action is the creation of the Serra da Estrela cheese week in foreign cities. This action can decisively contribute to the dissemination of our cheese. It is then necessary to build a distribution architecture that allows the interested consumer to find the cheese on the shelves of food stores.

President Charles de Gaulle complained that it was not possible to govern a country with 246 types of cheese. But what is certain is that French cheese producers have managed to govern themselves by creating a marketing council that promotes French cheese abroad. It is this type of union that can give strength to the Serra da Estrela cheese.

The second pillar is quality control. Without such control, all promotion efforts can be thwarted by the presence of producers of inferior quality cheese.

A good example of quality control is the creation of the consortium that controls the production of Parmesan cheese (Parmigiano-Reggiano). Founded in 1901, it certifies the origin and quality of the cheese that is exported. Today the cheese produced by the 350 artisanal cheese factories that obey the rules of the consortium they created is consumed and admired all over the world.

The creation of the PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) designation for the Serra da Estrela cheese gives the guarantee of quality that is essential for the Serra da Estrela cheese to succeed in international markets. With this pillar up, it is necessary to work on the promotion strategy so that one day our Serra da Estrela cheese conquers the world.

Professor Sérgio Rebelo^*Sergio Rebelo is a professor at Kellogg School of Management, in Northwestern University,  USA. In his spare time, he writes a blog about Portugal called Salt of Portugal.