Fine Fettle Yorkshire Cheese is the new name for Yorkshire Feta cheese, The Grocer can reveal.

Manufacturer Shepherds Purse Cheeses has been forced into the change by a contentious Brussels decision to award Protected Designation of Origin status to Feta - which means that from later this year only cheese made in Greece can be called Feta.

Fine Fettle Yorkshire Cheese was chosen after the company's first three choices for a new name - Yorkshire Fettle, Yorkshire F3ta and Yorkshire Fetish - were rejected by Defra, which said it believed they would be challenged by Brussels on the basis of being too similar to Feta.

"We spent hours sifting through the many suggestions we received for new names," said Shepherds Purse chief executive Judy Bell. "We wanted something that was true to Yorkshire and summed up the battle we fought for a decade.

"Yorkshire Fettle was our first choice, but we had to compromise. Fine Fettle Yorkshire Cheese was suggested by a legal adviser, and eventually passed as acceptable."

The Commission's decision was controversial because there is no geographical area in Greece called Feta. PDO status is usually only awarded to products named after a location. The Greeks argued that the grass eaten by sheep, goats and cows on its mountains gave the Feta cheese produced from their milk a special flavour.

Shepherds Purse challenged the ruling in a 10-year legal battle but was told by the European Court of Justice it would have to stop calling its cheese Yorkshire Feta from 1 May.

Bell said changing the branding had cost the company in excess of £30,000 in man hours, design, printing, packaging and re-marketing.

"We still feel very strongly that as Feta is not a geographical area of Greece we should be allowed to use it," said Bell. "But the directive left us with no choice."

Yorkshire Feta is Shepherds Purse's second best-selling product, accounting for 15% of the company's sales.


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