A FAMILY-owned cheesemakers has welcomed back long-time staff after successfully winning a legal dispute with a local council over a food poisoning incident.

Errington Cheese received a payment of £254,000 from South Lanarkshire Council in compensation for products that were seized in 2016 after being connected to an E. coli outbreak.

Links to the outbreak were disputed and the business was cleared of breaching food hygiene regulations this October in a judicial review which declared all the products safe to eat.

Selina Cairns, director at Errington Cheese said: “We have always been focused on doing what we do best, sustainably producing delicious, hand-made artisan cheese.

“Although the payment we have received from South Lanarkshire does not cover the decline in our sales, or the legal fees we have incurred in order to be cleared of any wrongdoing,

it is a testament to our determination to clear the business’s name, and represents an acknowledgement that the council’s confiscation of our product was wrong.”

The payment has allowed Errington Cheese to re-employ head cheesemaker Angela Cairns, a member of the family who had worked there since 2010, as well as Paul McAllister who joined as a cheesemaker Errington in 2013.

Cairns said: “I’m very happy to be back at Errington, working with my family to do what I love.

“It has been a long road over the last two years, but we remain determined and focused on rebuilding the business and continuing to produce award-winning cheese,” she added.

Last month the cheese producer won three awards at the World Cheese Awards in Norway, including two gold medals for its Corra Linn cheese and a silver award for their newest product Dunsyre Blue.

This adds to the recent success Errington had at the Slow Food Scotland Awards where the company’s Lanark Blue Cheese was awarded Champion Slow Food Product.

Cairns was also named Person of the Year at the same event.