Brits steaming over NZ-made cheddar

Dairy experienced its biggest quarterly fall since records began in 1950. Photo / Alan Gibson

British dairy farmers have been stirred up by the disclosure that much of the cheddar cheese in their local supermarkets was actually made in New Zealand, Latvia and Ireland.

Cheddar was traditionally made near England's Cheddar Gorge but a legal loophole means supermarkets can label cheese as being packaged in Britain without referring to the foreign country where it was actually made.

"British dairy farmers have warned that because the labels contain the words 'British' or the 'UK' many customers do not realise the cheese has been churned abroad," the Daily Mail reported today.

Last year a record 136,938 tonnes of cheddar was imported - more than 40 per cent of the total consumed in Britain.

A big supermarket chain, Tesco, said that up to a fifth of the cheddar in its cheaper range came from New Zealand and Ireland but was labelled: "packaged in the UK".

A 600g block of Tesco Value mild cheddar costs £2.89, ($6.59) while a 600g block of Cathedral City Mature Cheddar, which is made in Cornwall, costs $11.38.

The number of dairy farmers in the UK is estimated to have halved in the past decade, and the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers has written to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs calling for mandatory country of origin labelling on cheese.

Association chairman Lyndon Edwards: "Cheese can currently be imported in blocks, and cut and packaged in the UK with no statement to declare where the product originated from on the packaging. Consequently, consumers are confused over where their cheese and other dairy product originate from and this must be halted."

Nigel White, secretary of the British Cheese Board, said "rock bottom" prices for butter and milkpowder in 2008 made it more profitable for foreign manufacturers to supply the UK with cheap cheddar cheese, but most consumers believe cheddar was an English cheese.

The Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company managing director, John Spencer, told The Telegraph: "The British cheese industry would get a huge boost if it said on the label the country of origin of the cheese.

"That would encourage people to ignore imports and only buy original cheddar. You can't imagine Italians buying mozzarella from Bolton," said Mr Spencer, whose company is the only one left still making cheddar near the Somerset village of that name.

The European Union has previously tried to claim rights to names such as feta - for white salty cheese made in Greece - and parmesan for hard cheese ripened in the Italian city of Parma, while New Zealand exporters have argued these are generic labels rather than "geographical indicators" like champagne or burgundy wines in France.

New Zealand earns over $1 billion a year from cheese exports and Fonterra has previously estimated half that revenue comes from cheeses sold under traditional names - such as feta, brie, parmesan, mozzarella, camembert, gouda, edam, emmental and even the humble cheddar.

- NZPA