UK – The Food Standards Agency today launches a drive to promote food safety awareness throughout the UK specialist cheese industry.

The agency has teamed up with the Specialist Cheesemakers Association (SCA) in the initiative, which aims to protect consumers and support cheesemakers.

Cheesemakers have requested the drive so they can maintain an organised approach to identifying hazards and managing food safety. The campaign will be centred on the creation of a ‘workbook’ designed to make food safety planning simpler.
The Food Standards Agency and SCA are also to launch a project, which will look at setting up a database to protect the 13 UK specialist cheeses that have Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO) status. Such cheeses include Derbyshire’s Buxton Blue.

This is a follow up to Food Standards Agency research that looked at ways of authenticating cheese, milk and butter products that come from specific geographical areas.