£200,000 of cheese is seized in E.coli raid
Latest blow for producer
BATCHES of cheese at the centre of an E.coli legal wrangle have been seized by local authority officials. South Lanarkshire Council swooped on the premises of Errington Cheese in Carnwath yesterday and took away supplies worth £200,000 in a fleet of vans.
The raid came as a court order effectively protecting the goods from seizure expired.
Officials claim the Lanark Blue is infested with a potentially deadly strain of the bug.
However, the family-run business insists its goods are safe and has the scientific evidence to prove its case.
Now the two sides will clash again in court as the council has vowed to seek permission from a sheriff to have the cheese condemned as unfit for human consumption and destroyed.
But company founder Humphrey Errington, 71, said last night: ‘Today has been a very upsetting day.
‘We were supposed to get written notification of any action but they just turned up and said vans would start arriving in an hour so we didn’t have time to go to court to get an interdict.
‘There was no need to physically remove the cheese – they could have just sealed the storeroom. We don’t know whether it’s now being kept in sanitary conditions or at the right temperature. They want to destroy us and they won’t be happy until we are put out of business.’
Mr Errington added: ‘There are many types of E.coli and only a few are dangerous.
‘We’ve had experts look at the official Lanark Blue test results. They have not found any pathogenic strains.
‘We have carried out much more extensive testing than them on 100 batches and have not found a single pathogen.
The saga began last July when 22 people were struck down in an E.coli outbreak. Eleven needed hospital treatment including a three-monthold girl from Dunbartonshire who later died.
In September, Government watchdog Food Standards Scotland ordered an embargo on Errington Cheese, claiming it had detected the deadly O157 strain in a batch of Lanark White, non-O157 in Dunsyre Blue plus genes suggestive of contamination, findings contested by the cheesemaker.
Investigators said 15 of the victims had eaten Dunsyre Blue, which is only produced by the company.
Last week, though, the Court of Session ruled that the council’s attempts to enforce the embargo were unlawful and gave the authority a week to reconsider its detention orders on three Errington products.
‘They want to destroy us’
However, just as the time period was due to elapse, officials arrived to seize the cheese.
The council also announced fresh tests on Errington’s Corra Linn cheese but proposed allowing Dunsyre Blue back in shops on condition it is used only for cooking.
Michael McGlynn, the council’s executive director of community and enterprise, said: ‘To ensure public health we are removing one type of cheese which tests have identified as unsafe and we will seek to put this cheese before a sheriff asking that they be condemned.
‘However, we will continue to undertake thorough testing and analysis to determine whether it is appropriate to allow Errington Cheese to market the remaining products.’
The embargo has forced the company to lay off a dozen staff and rack up substantial legal bills, but Mr Errington vowed to contest the impending hearing over the fate of its Lanark Blue stocks.
A campaign group was formed this week to help protect small independent producers from what it claims is a Government ‘vendetta’. The Committee for the Defence of Artisan Food held its first meeting in Edinburgh, with around 200 people there.
Food writer Joanna Blythman said: ‘The Errington case is much bigger than one family story. It confirms the suspicion that artisan food businesses are under attack.’