Grate expectations as cheese comes of age

FORGET the traditional scrap of shrivelled cheddar accompanied by an old oatcake. Scotland's top restaurants now have cheese menus and place such a high premium on ever more obscure local brands that they are lovingly described in the sort of flowery language once reserved for fine wines. As consumers and diners have opted for the fat of the land to round off their meal, cheese has become the new wine.

Shoppers and restaurant goers are taking their cue from celebrity chefs and snacking on upmarket 'artisan' cheeses made by local suppliers and sold at specialist cheesemongers such as Iain Mellis or at the ever-expanding number of farmers' markets, as an alternative to the conventional supermarket varieties.

It is a change in buying and consumption patterns that has seen spending on local and organic cheeses increase by almost a fifth in the past year to £63m, while more conventional medium and mild cheddars have seen sales decline.

"It [customers' attitude towards cheese] has changed a lot since I became a chef," said Kevin Broome, the head chef at the Torridon Hotel in Achnasheen in Wester Ross, which recently won an award for its cheeseboard. "It's partially fuelled by celebrity chefs and their focus on local food and knowing where it has come from. It's the new wine. We now have cheese menus, where we write about them like you would write about wine. Cheese is man's chocolate, whereas chocolate is women's chocolate. It's what you nibble on when you want to feel good."

He added that this year was expected to be "a top year" for cheese because heavy rainfall during what was one of Scotland's most soggy summers has been good for pastures where dairy cattle feed and the mild temperatures help cheese-making. These are vintage times for the growing number of small cheesemakers who view themselves as placing quality before quantity.

The figures back up Broome's contention that we are witnessing a sea-change in our attitudes towards cheese. According to marketing information consultants TNS, shoppers bought £62.6m of lesser-known regional and organic cheeses in the UK, compared with £52.8m in the previous year. And data from market analysts Mintel show that "territorial" cheeses, a term which includes mass-market UK regional cheeses as well as the smaller producers, rose from £160m in 2002 to £220m last year.

The study also forecast that shoppers will continue buying more organic and specialist cheese and that they will want to know more details about where the cheese in their shopping basket has come from.

"There has been a change in recent years," said celebrity chef Martin Wishart. "We find that about 60% of our diners do opt for cheese and that is more than you would have expected a few years ago. We do display our cheeses well, but it's also down to people doing a lot more travelling and also more foreign chefs coming to Scotland and us learning from each other. The days of some dry crumbly cheddar with a couple of oatcakes are gone."

From rock to Roquefort

Cheese is definitely rock 'n' roll. Alex James, the bassist from Blur, took up cheesemaking in 2005, enduring quips about being a very big cheese in the country.

James was regarded as the most fast-living member of the 1990s Britpop set, sleeping for a week under the snooker table of London's Groucho Club.

In 2003 he sold his London home for a 200-acre farm in a small village located between Chipping Norton and Stowe on the Wold in Gloucestershire.

James said of the move: "The more I think about cheese the more I like it and the more I want some, which is why I'm taking matters into my own hands and venturing into the world of independent cheesemaking. My heart always beats a little faster in the cheese aisle of a French supermarket."

He and a local cheesemaker rebuilt a stone outhouse at the farm with a view to using it for producing cheese. Earlier this year, Little Wallop, his fresh goat's milk cheese, picked up silver at the British Cheese Awards.