The island’s creamery has the French cheese markets in its sights and it also hopes to export to China.

The Isle of Man Creamery’s sales and marketing manager, Tim Sayers, said they are currently targeting a number of areas beyond the highly competitive and price sensitive UK market.

’The UK market is difficult at the moment but we are doing a lot of work to get into France and China, at the moment, where it is less price sensitive. France, in particular, is one of the biggest consumers of cheddar outside the UK,’ he said.

Exports from the Creamery also go as far afield as the Middle East, including countries like Dubai and Qatar, and America, with the latter receiving around 400 tonnes of Manx cheese each year.

Recently the Creamery announced its cheese was being stocked by Asda and Morrisons supermarkets in the UK - but there is no guarantee it will remain on the shelves indefinitely, with supermarkets regularly swapping brands.

Currently around 120 Asda and Morrisons shops stock the Creamery’s grated mature cheese, while oak-smoked cheddar, one of the popular lines is found in around 30 Tesco Extras.

’Not everyone stocks the whole line but the volume overall is about 40 tonnes of butter and cheese per year,’ Mr Sayers said.

Some years ago, Sainsbury’s supermarket stocked Creamery cheese but this was dropped in the main shops. The products are also available from on-line supermarket Ocado.

Sometimes shops sell the cheese as part of a promotion, perhaps from the delicatessen counter, in which case it may be a short term offering. The Morrison’s line is currently offered as a delicatessen product. If it is stocked as part of the standard offering, as with the line in Asda, it may stay for longer, but supermarkets tend to alter their offering fairly regularly, Mr Sayers said.

Currently around 50 tonnes of cheese goes to continental Europe and about 30 tonnes goes collectively to Northern and Southern Ireland. About 40 tonnes of cheese is also supplied to Canada as a supermarket luxury brand.