Social Makeover: A Cheese Merchant Sees Results on Facebook

As the old saying goes, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. For a Virginia-based cheesemonger, though the equivalent might be when the FDA takes away your cheese, create a Facebook contest.

Back in March, the Food and Drug Administration began a total cheese lockdown with regard to mimolette, a French gouda rival. The FDA reasoned that mimolette might trigger allergies in some whose systems can abide the tiny cheese mites needed to aerate mimolette.

Jill Erber, the owner of Cheesetique, a business Mashable profiled earlier this month decided to capitalize on the controversy by offering a 1/4 lb. of her company's dwindling stock of mimolette to fans who posted a pic of themselves "frowning pathetically" on Cheesetique's Facebook Page. The result was overwhelming. Some 80 people posted photos and the stunt caught the attention of national media including Fox News and The Washington Post, which Erber says plans to run an article this week on the topic.