The Food Standards Agency has just issued a precautionary recall of Kirkham's Lancashire cheese.
Although it is a precautionary recall at the moment, if you received any Kirkham’s Lancashire cheese in your cheese delivery it is best to err on the side of caution and not consume it.
The FSA has decided ‘better safe than sorry’, as it seems some batches that have been processed by another wholesaler have flagged up a problem.
As yet there has not been any FSA testing carried out on Kirkham's Lancashire (and other non-cheese products) handled by the wholesaler where the problem has been identified, so the source of the problem is not yet confirmed.
Having worked with Mrs Kirkham's for 15 years, I am reassured by the fact that they are SALSA accredited for hygiene and they carry out frequent in-depth testing (as do we), following the best hygiene code of practice within our industry.
For the time-being, however, we advise you to follow FSA advice not to consume Kirkham’s Lancashire until the FSA can get to the bottom of the matter.
At cheeses of Muswell Hill we will be working with our EHO and the FSA to help determine the extent of the problem, and we will keep you informed.
We will of course arrange a full refund in the New Year for those who purchased Kirkham's Lancashire from us.
I apologise for this inconvenience; it has come out of the blue for us too.

Here is the official statement from kirkhams Lancashire dairy - 

"To all our customers, further, to reports in the media released this morning, we have taken the difficult decision to recall all of our products.

This is a precautionary measure, based on information we only received around yesterday teatime. 

Whilst at this time, there has been no testing carried out on our products by the FSA to confirm any suspected risks, we feel it is our duty to recall our products. 

We are working very closely with our local Environmental Health Officers and the Food Standards Agency to fully understand the situation, and whether our products have been correctly implicated.

Our modern and purpose-built facility here at Mrs kirkham's, is accredited to the Safe And Local Supplier Approval + cheese (SALSA) standard, and as a member of The Specialist Cheesemakers Association we are careful to always adhere to their code of best practice within our business.
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This recall relates to new testing techniques designed to better identify potentially dangerous strains of Shiga Toxin producing E.coli. Unfortunately, these new testing techniques are not currently industry standard. As a result, despite rigorous and thorough testing throughout our production processes, the potential risk to product safety was not previously identified. 

We are now unfortunately in a state of limbo until testing laboratories reopen and resume testing. As soon as they do, together with the FSA we will investigate further.

Due to the ongoing and uncertain nature of this situation we would advise our customers to be aware that a recall has also been issued for several other unrelated products.

We would like to assure all our customers that as we have more information, we will be posting updates on the situation.
We will be suspending all orders until investigations are completed and we have some answers.

We please ask in the first instance you make your customers aware of this situation and hold any remaining stock, until we can update you with further information. 

We apologise for any inconvenience caused at such an important time of year."