A FAMILY firm taking on Europe in a bid to call its product feta cheese is vowing to fight on after the latest set back.

Shepherd's Purse Cheese of Newsham, Thirsk, is refusing to bow to European Commission pressure that only cheese made in Greece can be called feta.

Instead the maker of Yorkshire Feta is waiting to see if other countries toe the line.

Judy Bell, chief executive of Shepherd's Purse, said: "This is not the end of the road.

"There is too much legislation coming into this country from Europe which is disadvantaging businesses.

"It's time to take and stand and say we have had enough.

"It will be interesting to see what happens elsewhere and see if the French continue to sell feta cheese.

"If the French continue to make feta cheese and ship it over here then I don't think the EU has a leg to stand on."

The fight stems back to 1996 when Defra sent the company a letter stating it could no longer call its product feta.

This is because, like Newcastle Brown Ale and Parma ham, feta is the subject of an EU Protected Designation of Origin Law.

Yet Shepherd's Purse sells around £200,000 of Yorkshire Feta yearly and it makes up 15pc of its business. Any enforced removal of the product from shop shelves across the country with re-marketing is likely to be costly.

Mrs Bell, 53, says: "We don't have to withdraw it at the moment and it will remain on the shelves for the rest of the year.

"It will cost somewhere in the region of £10,000 to re-brand it.

"We are being careful about packaging as that will cost the most and so we are running that down.

"This has given us loads of publicity but it is something we could have done without."

Jobs at the 18-year-old business, which employs 19 people, are not under threat if the EU bans the sale of Yorkshire Feta.

But it may in an extreme situation, claims Mrs Bell, hit farmers as the business will not need as much goat's milk.

At present both Germany and Denmark are also battling the EU's 2002 ruling that only Greece can market feta.

A final legal ruling on the matter is expected to come later this year and a ban on the name feta would come into force from 2007.