Two members of the West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers group, Westcombe Dairy and Brue Valley Farms, are to be visited this week by a delegation of Turkish government officials aiming to learn more about the EU Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) scheme.
The scheme is used to protect the authenticity of foods that are specific to a region, such as farmhouse Cheddar, Cornish clotted cream and French Champagne. It ensures that all PDO foods are made by traditional methods with only traditional ingredients in the region from which they originate.
With its goal set on entering the EU, the Turkish government has sent three trademark specialists to learn more about how the scheme might be applied to certain traditional foods from Turkey.
West Country Farmhouse Cheesemakers comprises 14 of the 16 dairies that are allowed to describe the cheese they make as ‘West Country Farmhouse Cheddar’.
