Kokova Magazine

The holiday season may be over, but chances are your fridge is still straining under the weight of leftover Christmas food items that you're struggling to use up.

In these tough economic times it's more important than ever for us all to reduce the amount of food we waste, and yet the reality is that millions of tonnes of food will end up in our kitchen bins each year.

Of this, an estimated 38,000 tonnes of avoidable waste is cheese, the equivalent of 3.7 million servings of cheese a day, costing consumers over £240m a year.

The majority of cheese wasted is thrown away because it is not used in time i.e. packs are opened but not finished, and this could be due in part to a lack of understanding about how to store cheese after opening, or because people aren't aware of how versatile cheese can be as a cooking ingredient.

A surprising 16% of consumers believe that fridge temperatures do not make a difference to how long food lasts.

Less than one in five store their cheese in an air tight container.

A further 16% also wrongly believe that cheese is cannot be frozen.

With cheese likely to be one ingredient that most households will have left over at this time of year, the British Cheese Board (BCB) working in partnership with Love Food Hate Waste has put together some suggestions to help you make the most of your surplus Stilton and Cheddar, by using it to create delicious and nutritious meals for the family.

The BCB's tips on how to properly store cheeses should also ensure you're getting the maximum shelf life out of your purchases without compromising on quality or safety.

Cheese is a very versatile ingredient to cook with, so there really is no need to waste any of your left over cheeses from the festive season. By taking our advice on storing your cheeses, and inspiration on how to use them to make some delicious budget meals, you can ensure you're making the most of every penny you've spent on cheese this Christmas.

Nigel White, secretary of the British Cheese Board

Top tips for cheese storage:

• Although cheese is generally best enjoyed fresh, it can be stored in a cool environment for anything from a couple of days to several months, depending on the type of cheese.
• Some softer cheeses such as Brie and Camembert actually improve with age, so you can buy them in advance and give them a chance to ripen. Just keep an eye on the 'use before' dates.
• When storing cheese, either wrap it tightly in foil or cling film and if possible, keep in an airtight container in the bottom part of the fridge.
• If you've bought more cheese than you can eat this Christmas, or any time of year, it is possible to freeze certain open textured cheeses such as Stilton very effectively as the texture allows the ice crystals to form in the tiny gaps. Once defrosted in the fridge overnight, the texture and flavour is not affected.
• With hard cheese like Cheddar the dense nature of the cheese means the ice crystals force the hard cheese apart, so when hard cheese defrosts it becomes crumbly. You can solve this problem to a large extent by grating hard cheeses prior to freezing then defrosting before use. It defrosts quickly at room temperature.

As well as being the star attraction at any Christmas buffet, if you're lucky enough to have any leftovers, a British cheeseboard will also provide you with the ingredients on which to base a huge variety of tasty and nutritious meals.
www.britishcheese.com