Cervelat was covered closely by the Swiss media and in a newspaper poll, 72% of those surveyed said the ""cervelas", as they knew it, had to be saved." The cervelat crisis was brought up in a parliamentary debate wherein state councillor and president of the Swiss Meat Association, Rolf Büttiker, spoke of the national sausage's social significance, calling it a "cult sausage" and "the worker's steak". The Swiss government entered into negotiations with the EU to seek an exception for zebu intestines, and Swiss scientists were sent to Brazil hoping to show that the intestines posed no risk of transmitting mad
Cervelat Among these were beef intestines. Although Switzerland is not an EU member state, it is bound to observe European food protection laws through other treaty agreements. Hence, Swiss and German stockpiles of zebu intestines became very low by 2008, threatening production altogether, and causing some controversy in Switzerland. In January of that year, the Swiss meat industry announced that a national "cervelat task force" had failed in an exhaustive search for an acceptable alternative to zebu intestines. The "New York Times" noted that "the possible demise of cervelas visibly upset the Swiss, a normally even-tempered people." The cervelat production crisis