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Crusade for real cheese rolls into Westminster
THE campaign to protect real Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese from poor imitations reached new heights yesterday when the Yorkshire Post travelled to London to deliver thousands of signatures supporting the move.
Wensleydale Dairy Products, accompanied by the Yorkshire Post, handed over more than 14,000 signatures to Richmond Tory MP William Hague backing its application for protected status.
Mr Hague, a keen supporter of our Uniquely Yorkshire campaign, will pass on the petition to the Department for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as part of its consultation process before the application goes to the European Union for a final decision. Hawes-based Wensleydale Dairy Products submitted its application for protected designation of origin for Real Yorkshire Wensleydale last summer.
If granted, it would mean manufacturers outside the dale would be unable to make a cheese and call it real Yorkshire Wensleydale.
The application is now going through a 12-week consultation process, which ends on March 12.
Mr Hague promised to pass on the petition to Defra and include a letter from himself in support of the campaign.
He said: "This is a wonderful campaign endorsed by a lot of people.
"I totally support it and I think we have strong backing from people everywhere that this tremendous product should be correctly identified so that people know when it comes from there it is real quality."
Thousands of people have eagerly signed the petition at Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes, at Castle Howard, on the Yorkshire Post website and by filling in coupons in the newspaper.
David Hartley, managing director of Wensleydale Dairy Products, said: "Before we started the campaign, to say we might have 14,000 signatures would have been a startling prospect."
TV chefs Brian Turner and James Martin are among those who pledged support for the campaign.
n The Yorkshire Post travelled with GNER, which runs train services from Leeds to London and serves real Yorkshire Wensleydale cheese on its menu.
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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