He finally brought his Lanark Blue cheese onto the market in Scotland in 1985, and in England in 1986.
Errington had his own testing laboratory, was accredited under the Food from Britain quality scheme, and had 9 years of growing sales. But in December 1994, problems arose suddenly and quickly.
The District Council of Edinburgh, Scotland, had tested samples of Lanark Blue obtained from a shop in Edinburgh and found listeria in the samples. The report got passed to Clydesdale District Council's Environmental Health Office (EHO), because the cheese was actually made within their region. Clydesdale District Council tested an additional 25 samples, and found 24 of them were contaminated.
Errington was ordered to do a complete recall of all his cheeses and cease selling them, and was told that if he didn't do this, the EHO would do it for him. The government issued an urgent health alert throughout the entire United Kingdom, and the story hit the newspapers, titled "Killer Cheese." Government officials told him to expect many deaths. He signed an agreement to recall all the cheese for two months.
Then, a retail buyer called him, and said he'd had tests done on the Lanark Blue in his store, and there was absolutely no evidence of listeria. Errington sent out his cheeses for testing by outside laboratories and they too didn't find any problem. The outside labs said they found the procedures of the government labs dubious. He was advised by a Dr Richard North to inform the government, and sell his cheese again.
On that basis, in January 1995, Errington announced that he was putting his cheese back on the market. Government officials seized the cheese and went to court, asking for an order to destroy all the cheeses. The court ordered more tests to be done by a lab that both the government and Errington could agree on. A lab was agreed on, but then the government people insisted that all tests were to be done instead by the Scottish Agricultural College (SAC), with the government being the sole conduit of communication and results with the SAC. They sent 50 samples. The government said that the SAC had found high levels of listeria, and refused to let Errington look at the findings. The government asked for the cheeses to be destroyed and the court agreed, Errington appealed.
Errington continued fighting for 11 months and 5 more trips to court. He won each time, but the government went back again and again. Though Errington didn't have the unlimited legal funding that the government officials did, donations totalling over £37,000 came in from the public at large to help him with his legal costs.
He had to go to France to get cheese experts to testify for him because, he said, experts in Britain had been warned not to speak to him. Towards the end of 1995, Clydesdale District Council then attempted to also seize his 1995 production of cheeses. A government's lawyer defended the Council's actions, saying that "the Council was not obliged to be seen to be acting reasonably."
Errington went back to court with 70 certificates from laboratories such as Analytical Services Centre (Food Park) Ltd saying that his cheese was listeria free. One French cheese expert testified that for the claimed high levels of listeria to be present in the cheese, they'd have to be present in the milk in such high quantities that there'd also be problems in the animals, and there was no sign of that. Nor was the listeria was in any of the other cheeses that Errington made.
In final proceedings, though, on 5 December 1995, Errington triumphed with a judge that had lost patience with government officials. The judge found a lack of control in fundamental procedures (including improperly cleaned equipment) at the Scottish Agricultural College, which the government had repeatedly insisted on as being the only source of testing to be referred to. Errington's defence had pointed out that 63,000 portions of the cheese were estimated to have been eaten, with no one falling sick, but the government officials merely replied that 63,000 was too small a sample size to go on. The judge said their view on this "seems to be contrary to common sense." He also said that by now, the Council was "lacking in objectivity, insecure, and finding it necessary to support a view at all costs rather than approaching matters in a measured and balanced way." He said their actions had degraded to harassment.
Yet, the judge granted the Council's requests to have the seized cheeses destroyed. But, in granting the order for their destruction under the law, he also slyly gave Errington a tremendous boost. By this time, the seized cheeses were of no market value, and Errington would simply have been destitute. But he ordered their destruction in a manner that caused another provision to kick in, which obligated the government to compensate Errington. In this way, the Judge awarded damages worth several hundred thousand pounds to Errington.
Still, Errington's marriage had broken up owing to the stress. But, as a result of the support network he was forced to form during the battle, Errington created the European Alliance of Traditional and Raw Milk Cheese Producers (EAT) in September 2003.
The Clydesdale District Council steadfastly maintained that they had taken correct actions, and that court action would never have been necessary if Mr Errington had voluntarily complied.
In 1984 Humphrey Errington recommenced cheese making on the farm, starting with a small flock of dairy sheep to produce Lanark Blue. Demand for the cheese increased rapidly and soon the milking flock grew to about 350 ewes and a new rotary milking parlour was introduced. In 1986 Dunsyre Blue, the cows' milk sister to Lanark Blue, was launched and, more recently, Lanark White (ewes' milk) and Maisie's Kebbuck (cows' milk) were developed following old recipes. Raw (i.e. unpasteurised) milk is always used because this is the way all the best cheese is made.
Humphrey's daughter, Selina, is now in charge of cheese making and her husband, Andrew Cairns, runs the farm, (supervised closely by their one year old daughter Caitlin) thereby ensuring that the business remains a family concern for another generation."
Cited from the Cook & housewifes manual " A practical system of modern domestic cookery and family management." By Misstress Magaret Dods (1862) Edinburgh, Oliver & Byd, Teedale court 11 edition:
Scottish Imitation of Stilton - to the mornings milk add that of the prevoius evening either skimmed or with crem as you intend to make a very rich cheese or one of inferior quality do have the milk to hot, and employ no more yearning (i.e Rennet) than will barely serve to curdle it. Wehn fully coagulated, gently and without much handling or breaking, gather the curd into a cloth, which place in a deep sieve or net, and afterward, when firm enough to lift, in a stilton shaped cheese hoop. Afterward steep the cheese in pickle, then dry it, changing the binders very frequently. All fine cheese should be rubbed and turned every day for the first two months. Kindly donated from Arther Bell.
Lanark Blue is a firm favourite on Scottish cheeseboards and without it, there might not be such a thing as a Scottish cheeseboard at all. Certainly not one where terms such as ‘farmhouse,’ ‘hand-made’ and ‘unpasteurised’ could attach themselves to the best of the selection upon it.
The man who created Lanark Blue, Humphrey Errington, farms 400 sheep near Carnwath in the Lanarkshire countryside and began making cheese in the mid-1980s as a diversification exercise to add value to his flock. In doing so he created the first new Scottish blue cheese for centuries. ‘Cheese making in the past was always a part of farming and I wanted to revive the tradition,’ he says.
By the mid-1990s, having perfected his unpasteurised cheese and found plenty of regular buyers, Errington fell foul of the local environmental health authorities, who wanted him to produce a ‘safe’ pasteurised cheese.
Problems escalated when Clydesdale Council claimed to have found Listeria monocytogenes in a sample and demanded all produce be recalled. Devastated by the news, Errington had his own tests done, the majority of which failed to find any listeria, while a few found minute amounts of a non-dangerous strain. He decided to appeal against the council’s decision and the case went to court. Legal arguments dragged on for over a year, making Errington and his flock a regular news item.
‘We fought the case on a couple of grounds,’ he says. ‘Firstly that the government’s test methodology was incorrect and secondly that the listeria strain in question was not a harmful one. Professor Hugh Pennington championed our cause and eventually sense prevailed and we won the case.
‘We were tremendously lucky in that so many customers stuck by us and continued to take our cheese and also that people all over the country helped to raise funds to pay our escalating legal bills. But it was a fight that needed to be fought for small producers everywhere and it touched a lot of people.’
In 1984 Humphrey Errington recommenced cheese making on the farm, starting with a small flock of dairy sheep to produce Lanark Blue. Demand for the cheese increased rapidly and soon the milking flock grew to about 350 ewes and a new rotary milking parlour was introduced. In 1986 Dunsyre Blue, the cows' milk sister to Lanark Blue, was launched and, more recently, Lanark White (ewes' milk) and Maisie's Kebbuck (cows' milk) were developed following old recipes. Raw (i.e. unpasteurised) milk is always used because this is the way all the best cheese is made.
In 2004 Humphrey was trying to come up with ideas for disposing of the whey and came across a receipie for an ancient Scottish drink called blaand which is made from fermented whey, thought to have medicinal properties. After several years of trials the drink was revived and Fallachan was born (alc +/- 12%). Fallachan is matured in oak casks for several years and makes the perfect accompaniment to a cheese board instead of more traditional drinks such as port.
Errington explains that cheese made at different times of the year can vary, as the ewes’ milk is affected by seasonal changes in their diet. The sheep are only milked between January and September, but Lanark Blue is available all year. ‘Following the success of this cheese we developed Dunsyre Blue a cow’s cheese which is also mould ripened and hand-made,’ he says. The unpasteurised milk for this cheese comes from a neighbouring farm at Dunsyre – hence the name.
Two white cheeses followed, one made with ewes’ milk named Lanark White and another, Maisie’s Kebbuck, from cows’ milk. This cheese was made for Humphrey’s mother-in-law Maisie, who does not like blue cheese, and very proud she is of it.