A NORTH Yorkshire cheesemaker has won a contract to supply its Yorkshire Blue and Buffalo Blue cheeses in pre-packed format to Waitrose.

Shepherds Purse Cheeses of Thirsk will supply 100 branches of the food retail arm of The John Lewis Partnership with its cheese as a pre-packed product. Buffalo Blue, which is hand made from locally sourced water buffalo milk in Yorkshire, is priced at £2.75 per 125g.

Shepherds Purse, which already supplies its award winning Yorkshire Blue to Waitrose deli counters, will now also supply the cheese as a pre-packed product to eight branches of Waitrose.

Yorkshire Blue is made with 100 per cent Yorkshire cow's milk and is based on a continental style recipe. It is priced at £1.99 per 125g.

John Kerwin, director of Shepherds Purse, said: "Our Yorkshire Blue cheese has already proved very popular on the Waitrose deli counters. Winning the contract to supply both Yorkshire Blue and Buffalo Blue in a pre-packed format is a testament to the quality of, and the demand for, our premium handmade speciality cheeses."

A Waitrose spokesman said: " Shepherds Purse makes truly premium blue cheeses that our customers really enjoy, so we took the decision to introduce both Buffalo Blue and Yorkshire Blue as pre-packed products, to make shopping that bit easier for our customers."

Updated: 10:35 Friday, April 08, 2005