A NORTH Yorkshire cheese maker which supplies its award-winning products to leading supermarkets is receiving Government help towards a £514,000 expansion project aimed at trebling production.

Animal Health Minister Elliot Morley said on Monday that Shepherd's Purse, at Newsham, near Thirsk, represented the kind of project the Government was keen to support.

Mr Morley's ministry, Defra, is giving a £154,000 grant to Shepherd's Purse towards an expansion programme involving a new cheese room, store and packing room.

This will allow production to increase to 280 tonnes a year and enable Shepherd's Purse to expand the present staff of nine to at least 25 over the next three years.

Mr Morley left for London with a boxed selection of cheeses after touring Shepherd's Purse, founded in 1987 by Judy Bell as part of a diversification scheme on the family farm at Leachfield Grange, Newsham.

To secure the Defra grant, equivalent to one-third of the eligible development costs of the expansion, Shepherd's Purse had to demonstrate that the growing demand for its products would create a sustainable rural business, helping local producers and increasing local employment without damaging the environment.

Shepherd's Purse uses cow, ewe and buffalo milk supplied by local farms.

A site has already been cleared for the expansion and Mrs Bell said production was continuing during building work with as little disruption as possible.

Two years ago the Yorkshire blue cheese introduced by Shepherd's Purse in 1994 appeared on the House of Commons menu as well as on Concorde and the Eurostar train.

Mrs Bell revealed on Monday that sales worth between £11,000 and £20,000 had been lost just before Christmas because a Whitby sheep flock, which had been a source of milk since 1992, had been culled in the foot-and-mouth crisis.

There were hopes of developing exports to Europe, notably Holland, but there were also potential markets in America and Japan.

A new organic blue cheese, using milk from Gordon Tweddle's Acorn Dairy at Darlington, was being launched at Easter.

Mr Morley said: "The product is doing very well in the UK and has enormous export potential. The expansion is very good news for the area and milk producers.

"This is the type of quality specialist food which we are very good at producing and which should be promoted more."