Wallace and Gromit’s Cheesy Exports

The Yorkshire cheese Wensleydale, the favourite snack of the animated characters Wallace and Gromit has helped fuel a surge in UK food exports.

British food and drink exports were up 15.9% (£9.49bn) for the nine-month period to September 2008. These exports were helped by a fall in the value of the pound and an increasing recognition of UK food products in the global market place.

Cheese exports were particularly strong and were up 22.3% to £209m. Wensleydale a cheese from North Yorkshire was the star performer. Nearly £2m worth of the cheese is exported each year, mostly to North America. The firm is now trying to crack the tricky Fench cheese market.

There is also a great video clip on the BBC website that looks at how Wenleydale had to double production at the end of last year to go alongside the original Telegraph article.

Another industry that is benefiting is the UK tea industry. Although tea as a product is grown in India, China and Sri Lanka it is UK firms that sort and package the product. Once the tea has been placed in the tea bag it counts as a UK product. UK firms are now exporting large quantities of packaged tea back to China where the middle classes have be won over by the packaging.