The vast majority of cheese is mass-produced from milk pooled from mega-dairies. There is just one British producer of traditional farmhouse lancashire and a handful producing cheddar. Can the real deal make a comeback?

Grated. Soft. Cottage. Cheddar. The supermarket dairy aisle just isn’t representative of the whopping 700 varieties of cheese produced in Britain today. But Sharpham Cheese by the River Dart in south Devon is a world away from mass production. Here, a range of 14 “real” cheeses are handmade on a small scale from the milk of goats, Jersey cows and sheep.

“You can taste the richness of each milk,” says managing director Mark Sharman as he cuts into the original Sharpham, first produced in 1981. “This soft, creamy cheese finishes with a lactic acid tang and a chicory-like bitterness.” Then there’s the dense, slightly crumbly, “almost lemony fresh” Ticklemore goat’s cheese; the indulgent triple-cream Elmhirst that smells of fresh grassy pastures; and the award-winning Cremet, goat’s cheese with added cow’s milk cream – divine [ . . . ] More: Raw power! Why we need a campaign for real cheese