The Hellim (Halloumi) Goldrush, A Glimpse into the Cyprus Occupation Economy
The procurement of a protected designation of origin (PDO) status for hellim (halloumi) is part of a wider effort to stigmatize and attack a whole nation of people
People the world over love hellim (halloumi). But behind every squeaky bite of this briney “white gold”, lies a brutal truth: stolen land, corruption, and cultural murder.
The multi-million hellim industry in south Cyprus is fueling the isolation of an entire people, and is run by an illegal and illegitimate polity, acting like some robber barren hellim cartel, and British, American, European and even Chinese supermarkets are still cashing in.
I love sharing my writing with you, but I don't want a paywall standing between us. If you want to support me, but can't with a subscription, buy me a coffee (or tea, I like tea) instead. No pressure, just gratitude, and maybe a little nourishment my way. This way, you can enjoy my content, and if you'd like to help me keep creating, a small contribution goes a long way!
From time to time, the Greek Cypriot administration of southern Cyprus (GCASC), considered to be the “caretaker” of the otherwise illegal and illegitimate Greek occupied Republic of Cyprus (ROC) government, imposes on the island a climate of financial security fear through state economic terrorism.
Suddenly, there are more restrictions imposed on sacks of hellim being produced in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and they may as well appear hanging on the crossings like corpses in protest, and now those who gain the most profit are the Greek Cypriot businesses and international brokers, the European, British and American brokers.
People are obsessed with hellim.
They literally devour hellim, almost all of it imported from south Cyprus.
But what if I told you this multi-million-dollar industry is soaked in blood and controlled by a cleverly-disguised dictator regime, a vicious and savage apparition parading itself as a “bulwark of western democracy and European values,” which in reality is the very antithesis of what it sells, but is internationally supported regardless.
It’s creating poverty, lack of financial security, cultural destruction, and deliberately mistreating an entire race of people, stealing what is not theirs, and slapping the word “Greek” on top and bon voyage, have at it Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Aldi and Lidl.
Hellim has become a vehicle for suffering and the destruction of livelihoods.
South Cyprus is by far the world’s biggest producer of hellim, whereas those clever and capable enough have been able to create their own, better quality, more cost-effective, more traditional variants, though not out of conscious humanitarianism.
But ever since their administration acquired for the island the protected designation of origin (PDO) status for hellim with the European Commission (EC) in 2021,1 the demand has skyrocketed, fueling the systemic human rights abuses against Turkish Cypriot producers in the TRNC, where the sale of hellim to most other countries must go through the Green Line and be dependent on approval by the ROC, which the Greek Cypriots exploit to impose strict quotas subservient to the state policy of deliberately stifling potential economic successes and competition from the TRNC.
This uniquely Greek Cypriot monopoly on the production and export of hellim from the island also means wealth that is concentrated in few hands and often criminal hands.
These people who are in charge infiltrated the government, the civil services, the army, the local police and even local municipalities, many of them are past members, supporters, or descendants of extreme far right Greek nationalist terrorists and their corresponding military, economic, social, cultural, legal or political entities.
When their proscribed terrorist organisation - EOKA - had to be dissolved in 1959, its old members became the leaders and politicians of the new 1960 government, while the rest joined the successor to that movement from their positions of influence and power, and they all succeeded in destroying and seceding from the legal bicommunal partnership state established in 1963, taking over all government institutions and organs, creating a state of affairs which has yet to be solved, despite all the years.
So, of course there’s corruption.
That’s another part of the Cyprus Problem, by the way.
And this year too, a number of politicians, businesspeople, the whole works, all those people working in the government, in the districts and municipalities, even simple store owners refusing to source and sell TRNC products have also been complicit.
Desperate people fighting to protect their livelihoods have been directly economically attacked, politically kidnapped, even culturally killed for trying to join the PDO trap, as we can infer according to several reports.
But that hasn’t stopped British, American, European and even Chinese supermarkets from distributing south Cyprus hellim en masse, while joining the de facto embargo on the TRNC, and thus indirectly funding an occupational power with total impunity.
The export market for one side of the island has been limited to one main benefactor, Türkiye, as well as a handful of token states, while the island has been turned into the personal abattoir of the self-defined “owners” sitting in their proverbial “government of the whole island” in the south.
In order to create this monolithically Greek-dominated state of affairs, this mono-market that damages hellim, we have not only lost the island’s economic diversity and competition, that’s one negative, but also its prosperity, as well as its self-sufficiency.
People lost the ability to use their lands and resources to create and sell to the global market, and to sell their product in a competitive but healthy environment between the two sides on the island, that was already hijacked and tacitly enslaved to a system designed to make it unable for them to economically prosper, and to make them suffer.
Cyprus is very, very rich in resources, and can be very, very prosperous.
In 2021, T-Vine Magazine noted how terrible and discriminatory the hellim PDO is.23
But no one cited the connection of this hellim goldrush to the Greek occupation industry or sued the importers for whitewashing the Greek Cypriot administration’s lucrative operation, or its growing impact on the livelihoods of an entire people.
South Cyprus hellim is wrongly marketed as “sustainable” or “responsibly sourced,” hiding the devastating impact on the local population and on the livelihoods of the people in the only neighbouring state, and to whom the origin of hellim should be accredited.
Without allowing full and unfettered diplomatic, cultural and economic relations with the TRNC, and by pushing through the hellim PDO without the necessary agreement, consultation and involvement of the TRNC in the process, the Greek Cypriot administration has unilaterally created a quality disaster, an economic disaster, and a political disaster.
It has led to the flooding of the international market with cheap, low-quality, low-grade, non-traditional variants of hellim, while giving rise to the prominence of the much better quality and more traditional hellim produced elsewhere, such as the UK, which has already been in the spotlight for producing the traditional kind since 2015.4
It will lead to serious frustrations, demoralisation and psychological health problems within the people who work and produce hellim in the TRNC, even the families of these producers, including their children, who’s probability of growing up with a deep and informed feeling of financial despair and economic unfairness is very high, which means this will also have implications on a future settlement to the Cyprus Problem.
The reason Britain spearheaded the global free trade movement, as developed into its modern and recognisable form by Adam Smith and David Ricardo, was because it understood that free trade was the reason any civilization can prosper economically.5
That, and it essentially nullified a multitude of possible reasonings to conflict.
But now, with this PDO, together with the Green Line regulations, and the tightening of the noose strangling the TRNC’s economy, it is giving even more justification to the TRNC, with Türkiye, to act to preserve and protect the livelihoods of their people.
I’ll leave exactly how it is that they need to act to the reader’s imagination.
It is currently the year 2025, only a few years since the hellim PDO came into effect, even longer since the Green Line regulation, and there is still time to save the ship.
And so there needs to be a concerted effort, fronted by the creation of a joint pro-Turkish, Turkish and Turkish Cypriot coalition group, backed up by a pan-Turkish and Turkish Cypriot fund to support its activity, with representatives in different cities around the world, so financial backing, political support, and influence, and it can then write and if possible directly talk to the British, American and European administrations in order to demand tougher certification rules that recognise the illegal, illegitimate and unfair policies and practices of the Greek Cypriot administration, which is harming those countries’ national interests, and stop importing hellim produced in illegally occupied land, while supporting lifting the isolation of the TRNC in accordance with the promises following their acceptance of the UN Annan Plan in 2004.
It is likely that if not pushed hard enough, the world will fail to regulate this Cyprus occupation industry, and the native and indigenous community, the Turkish Cypriots, but even the Greeks and Greek Cypriots, will eventually be forced to face the music and pay the price.
And consumers also have a responsibility, and this will be an important step, to buy more responsibly, to buy more local, to be more conscious about the impacts of what we buy, to try to create new schemes that try to promote hellim free of unbalanced and unfair certifications, free of illegal occupation, and respectful to human rights.
My name is Mustafa Niyazi, and 4-years-in, this is what I think of the hellim PDO.
Hey guys, please do me a favour and like and share, and leave a comment. It helps out big time in the algorithm. Click subscribe as well for notifications when new articles drop, and read the article below right now. You know you want to.
And by the way, although I seem to be pretty critical, I am not saying that the people in the Greek occupied south of the island are all bad, but their polity is also not at all good,6 and though it has many issues that need to be addressed, alas, this is not that article. I’m also not going to be the one to say we should end trade with Greece, even though it is the one pulling the strings through its proxy in south Cyprus, but I will call on countries to cut off all trade and financial ties with south Cyprus, including a full arms embargo, and suspend its membership at the UN, pending a solution to the Cyprus Problem, and withdraw international support for its economy of occupation.
European Commission. Halloumi now registered as a Protected Designation of Origin. 12 April 2021. Date Accessed: 12 July 2025.
Although the traditional method of basing hellim production on goat or sheep milk has been picked up by places such as the U.K. but abandoned by Cyprus in favour of cow’s milk. Jean Christou. Cyprus Produced Halloumi Inferior and Industrial UK Cheesemakers Say. Cyprus Mail. 08 November 2015.
The notion of a free trade system encompassing multiple sovereign states originated in a rudimentary form in 16th century Imperial Spain. American jurist Arthur Nussbaum noted that Spanish theologian Francisco de Vitoria was "the first to set forth the notions (though not the terms) of freedom of commerce and freedom of the seas". Vitoria made the case under principles of jus gentium. However, it was two early British economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo who later developed the idea of free trade into its modern and recognizable form. Economists who advocated free trade believed trade was the reason why certain civilizations prospered economically. For example, Smith pointed to increased trading as being the reason for the flourishing of not just Mediterranean cultures such as Egypt, Greece and Rome, but also of Bengal (East India) and China. The Ottoman Empire had liberal free trade policies by the 18th century, with origins in capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, dating back to the first commercial treaties signed with France in 1536 and taken further with capitulations in 1673, in 1740 which lowered duties to only 3% for imports and exports and in 1790. Ottoman free trade policies were praised by British economists advocating free trade such as J. R. McCulloch in his Dictionary of Commerce (1834), but criticized by British politicians opposing free trade such as Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who cited the Ottoman Empire as "an instance of the injury done by unrestrained competition" in the 1846 Corn Laws debate, arguing that it destroyed what had been "some of the finest manufactures of the world" in 1812.
This article is not meant to convince you that south Cyprus and everyone living there is bad. In many, many ways, the state is. It represents wanton death and destruction, illegality, illegitimacy, brutal occupation, hatred, terrorism, violence, ethnic cleansing, genocide, atrocities, crimes against humanity, war crimes, settler colonialism, 1000s of people dead and buried, apartheid, greed, tyranny, racism, mass murder, land theft, looting... but it’s also not meant to convince you that it’s good. This territory cannot be boiled down to a couple of simple truths. South Cyprus is a dictatorship, it is a theocracy, it is an unrecognised administration parading itself as a modern, western, European democratic state, but has in-fact desecrated the state and constitution to which it was wrongly entrusted to be the “caretaker”, and morphed it into an abhorrent ethno-supremacist apartheid state. But it’s also just normal regular people doing their best. Hospitality workers looking for a job to feed their families. It’s beach caretakers, trying to preserve a piece of this territory’s beauty. It’s young service staff, finding ways to grow in a place with limited opportunities. South Cyprus is alot of things, but it’s not just one thing. Anybody’s takeaway after they’ve visited the place is that it’s complicated, it has nice beaches, and the food is delicious, but it is, above all, not a welcome place if you fit the definition of who they “hate”, and that can be a broad definition. Just don’t be Turkish, and don’t be a Muslim.