This year's South West Cheese Awards held at the Mid-Somerset Show showcased the finest cheese makers in our region.

Being based in the centre of Somerset’s cheese making country, the Show has a strong history of featuring cheese classes, and the South West Cheese Awards were a successful addition in 2011.

Since they have gone from strength to strength and now feature 66 different classes covering Cheddar to Goat’s Cheese and Stilton to Brie.

An impressive five awards were scooped up this year by Omsco, the UK’s largest organic dairy co-operative, for its range of Organic Kingdom Cheddars.

The cheese, produced in partnership with Wyke Farms, won three golds in the Mild, Mature and Extra Mature Organic Cheddar sections of the competition; took silver position in the Organic Hard Cheese class and was awarded bronze in the cheese for export in final branded packaging category.

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Michael Pollak, brand manager, says this is a fantastic achievement for the brand, which is sold in the US. He said: “We’ve worked hard to perfect our products over the past few years, and it’s superb to win awards in five categories.

“We started this venture with just a few farms. However, in light of export sales growing steadily over the years, our specialist milk production has expanded rapidly since then, and, as a result, we produce the only significant USDA-compliant dairy pool in Europe and are the UK’s largest exporter of organic dairy. This allows us to provide a stable and sustainable return to members."

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