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15/12/05 - Save Our Stilton!

SOS – SAVE OUR STILTON

STILTON DAIRIES SEEK INSURANCE TO SAFEGUARD CHRISTMAS STILTON

Producers of one of England’s national treasures are looking for an emergency £1m insurance policy to ensure that Blue Stilton is kept safe for cheese lovers around the world this Christmas.

After a summer of mixed weather and a string of sniffles and illness, Stilton makers feared that their highly trained cheese graders – of which there are only 21 in the world – might be unable to cope with the heavy demand on them in the run up to the festive period. So, bosses are looking to insure their nostrils for the whopping sum to ensure that the world’s supply of Stilton cheese will be available this Christmas.

The graders, highly trained cheese specialists who determine that every Blue Stilton produced meets exact prescribed standards of taste and texture, will have combined noses worth a potential £1,000,000 - that’s a whopping £25,000 per nostril!

The Stilton Cheese Makers Association is currently searching for a broker to fulfil the policy after fearing that the Stilton graders could suffer damage to their acutely trained senses of smell and taste as traditional winter colds kick in. The premium will cover loss of earnings for the dairies should the worst happen and all the graders fall ill.

Nigel White, of the Stilton Cheese Makers Association, comments:

"The Stilton dairies produce Stilton all year round but obviously are particularly busy in the months just before Christmas. This summer, as the weather was so unpredictable and many of our graders were off with summer colds, we began to have genuine worries about what we would do to safeguard the quality of Blue Stilton should illness befall our graders in the crucial weeks and months to come.

"Blue Stilton is a highly complex cheese and the graders have many years of experience of determining the exact point at which a cheese is ready to leave the dairy. Without this expertise and with so few qualified graders to call upon, we really feel we have to safeguard ourselves in case of illness at this crucial time."

Protected by a European Designation of Origin, Blue Stilton can only be made in six licensed dairies in Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Derbyshire with local milk and to stringent standards. A third of Stilton’s annual sales are made in run up to Christmas totalling up to 2,500 tons in the UK alone.

-Ends-

For more information please contact Rick Guttridge

E: stilton@brazenpr.com