Five cheesemakers have hailed the success of a crowdfunded legal challenge against new food safety inspection rules which they claimed would have killed off raw milk cheese production in Scotland.
Errington Cheese, Isle of Mull Cheese, Galloway Farmhouse Cheese, Cambus O’May Cheese Co. and Finlay's Farm launched the campaign in February against the legality of the Food Standards Scotland (FSS) inspection and enforcement guidance.
They said that as a result of their challenge, new guidance has now been published and they have dropped the legal action.
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The businesses raised more than £15,000 for legal fees to challenge the FSS’s guidance which they argued was contrary to established best practice and risked the future of the production of cheese from unpasteurised milk in Scotland.
Selina Cairns, director at Errington Cheese in Lanark, said: “We don’t believe that FSS would have made any changes to the document had we not gone ahead with the judicial review – only made possible by the support given to the crowdfunding campaign.
“We’re extremely hopeful that this is the last chapter of what has been an incredibly hard couple of years, with actions from FSS having detrimental impacts on our business and sales growth.
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“Now that we have fair and achievable guidelines in place, we look forward to getting back on track with production and sales, with the hope that we can begin to rebuild our local workforce.”
Last year, Errington won a legal ruling and £400,000 compensation from South Lanarkshire Council after it tried to have the firm's stock of Lanark Blue and Corra Linn destroyed. The case followed an ecoli outbreak which claimed the life of a young girl. Sheriff Robert Weir ruled that Errington Cheese did not breach safety standards and was safe to eat.
