AN award-winning county cheese-making firm is looking to tempt Italians to try its mouth-watering offerings in a bid to expand into a difficult new market.

Anstey's of Worcester hope some of its best traditionally-produced cheeses, like Snodsbury, could soon be rubbing shoulders on Italian cheese boards with home-produced favourites like gorgonzola, taleggio and fontina.

Colin Anstey, who runs the firm from the family's Broomhall Farm at Broom-hall, near Worcester, with his wife Alyson, said the wheels are in motion to export to Italy.

He said the market had opened up slightly as Italians are becoming more cosmopolitan in their food tastes and are not as likely to turn their nose up at foreign produce.

The Ansteys, who started the business nearly 20 years ago, have spent 18 months developing Snodsbury, a hard unpasteurised goats' cheese.

It had its Italian debut at a food fair reception in Bologna earlier this year.

"It's very interesting," said Mr Anstey. "The Italians prefer their own produce, much like the French, but now they are becoming more cosmopolitan in their taste and looking further afield for good quality cheeses. They are quite intrigued really."

The company's cheeses have tickled some of the most discerning tastebuds in the country. As well as being found in shops around the county, it has also found its way into the food halls at Harrods and Fortnum & Mason.

Looking to the future, the firm, which employs five people and has a shop at St Peter's Garden Centre, hopes to export about two to three hundred kilograms a month to Italy, although plans to secure a number of distributors was still in the pipeline.

September could be a critical date in the success of the foreign venture, when the Ansteys will take samples of its finest Worcestershire produce to the Slow Food Movement's World Cheese Fair in Bra, Piedmont, Italy.

Earlier this year, world-renowned cheese expert, Juliet Harbutt considered that the cheeses made near Worcester were so tasty that she included Anstey's in her list of the country's top 50 cheesemakers.