Appleby Creamery

The Eden Valley, tucked into Cumbria at the edge of the Lake District, has been home to Appleby Creamery since 2007. Cheesemaker Maurice Walton leads a team of around a dozen, several of whom have worked at the creamery since they were teenagers - a level of continuity that shows in the consistency of what leaves the dairy.

Milk is sourced almost entirely from local farms: cow's milk from the surrounding Eden Valley, and goat's milk from Meaburn Hall Farm, just eight miles away. From that milk comes a genuinely wide range - Eden Valley Brie, Black Dub Blue, Eden Chieftain (their cheddar-style), Blencathra (Caerphilly-style), and Hootenanny and Nanny McBrie from goat's milk - alongside one of the UK's first Halloumi-style cheeses.

The standout is Eden Smokie, a smoked brie that has picked up gold at the Great Yorkshire Show, gold at the International Cheese Awards, and a win at the Great British Food Awards, where the judge singled out its "well-judged smoking" and excellent flavour. Eden Valley Brie isn't far behind, with a Great Taste star and its own International Cheese Awards golds and silvers to its name.

The full brie and soft cheese range sits alongside cheddar and hard cheeses and the blue cheese range, or try a cheese hamper for a proper introduction to the range in one go.

Now stocked at Booths and shortlisted across the country's biggest cheese competitions, Appleby Creamery has built its reputation the old-fashioned way: good milk, real skill, and a team that's stuck around long enough to get it right. Order online at Farmfetch for easy UK delivery.