EU leaves Wensleydale dairy out in the cold

A row erupted yesterday between the makers of one of England's most famous cheeses and the Ministry of Agriculture following the omission of "Wensleydale" from a new EU list of 300 protected food and drink products.

The list, which is designed to prevent traditional products unique to particular areas from being copied elsewhere, includes champagne, Newcastle Brown Ale, Scotch beef - and eight European cheeses.

But it does not include Wensleydale, the pride and joy of its manufacturers, Wensleydale Dairy Products of Hawes, (WDP), the company which rescued the local creamery after Dairy Crest - the commercial arm of the Milk Marketing Board - closed it down in 1992.

Yorkshire's most celebrated cheese has been made in Wensleydale for 1,000 years and sold commercially for the past century. To aficionados it is the one and only crumbly, bitter-sweet genuine article, distinct from at least three impostors.

Its omission from the Protected Designation of Origin(PDO) list has left the creamery's managers and its 70-strong workforce stunned and angry.

David Hartley, managing director of WDP, which last year had a turnover of pounds 5.1m, said: "There's only one Wensleydale in the whole of the world . . . so it's particularly galling to us that we've been left off this list."

Mr Hartley laid the blame for the omission at the door of the Ministry of Agriculture which, he said, told the creamery of the deadline on applications for the list after the deadline had passed. A ministry spokesman said the deadline was well publicised and he was "at a loss" to know why the creamery didn't know of it. He added that WDP was likely to be included on the next PDO list, to be published "within a year".