HIS cheese has been named one of the best in the country and he believes it is full of traditional Hampshire goodness.

Therefore it comes as no surprise that farmer Mike Smales has dubbed moves to label cheese as junk food as a load of complete and utter gorgonzola.

Mike of Lyburn Farmhouse Cheesemakers spoke out after it revealed TV watchdogs are to start banning cheese adverts later this month during periods when children might be watching.

The Food Standards Agency has branded cheese junk food and called it less healthy than crisps and cheeseburgers.

Adverts for the 8,000-year-old food staple will now be banned alongside those for pizzas, chicken nuggets, chocolate and even Marmite.

However producers like Lyburn have hit back at the critics arguing that calling cheese unhealthy is ridiculous and instead saying it is up to people to eat the stuff in moderation. Mr Smales and his wife Judy have been producing cheese on their organic New Forest farm for about eight years, with milk from their 180 cows the source of their product.

Their Old Winchester Cheese has just scooped the Best Modern British Cheese award at the annual British Cheese Awards and narrowly missed rolling off with the Supreme Champion Cheese award. That award that went to another Hampshire producer, Hampshire Cheeses, based near Basingstoke, for their Tunworth Cheese.

The cheeses, one of several types made by Lyburn Farm, weigh in at four-and-a-half kilos each and are left to mature for 16 months after being made to develop their taste - a timeframe suggested to the Smales by a expert cheese friend of theirs.

Orders for Old Winchester, so named because the Smales have never missed a Farmer's Market in Winchester, have come from as far afield as Australia and the USA, though the majority is sold here in the UK especially in Hampshire.

Mike said: "We were delighted to get the award, and it's wonderful that our cheese has been so well received by those who have tried it.

"As for calling cheese unhealthy, it's utter rubbish and it leaves me speechless.'' To find out more visit www.lyburncheese.co.uk.