🚨 ITALY’S $300M CHEESE BANK IS NOW FACING A HEAT CRISIS In Northern Italy, Credito Emiliano treats Parmesan like gold. Its warehouses store more than 500,000 wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano worth over $300 million, allowing producers to use aging cheese as collateral for loans. Farmers can access cash immediately while the cheese matures for years inside climate-controlled vaults. But Italy’s current heatwave is putting the entire model under pressure. Temperatures in Emilia-Romagna have exceeded 40°C, causing cows to produce up to 10% less milk while drought threatens the local grass and hay required to make authentic Parmesan. The vaults are getting more expensive to operate too, with cooling-related energy consumption rising ~30% during peak heatwaves. The cheese may appreciate as it ages, but the cost of producing and protecting it is rising even faster. Italy has effectively built a cheese-backed financial system. Now extreme heat is stress-testing it.