Stilton has to be made in the East Midlands

Cheese producers use a team of 21 highly trained specialists to determine that every Stilton meets prescribed standards of taste and texture.

They are seeking a broker to provide emergency insurance cover of up to �1m to cover loss of earnings for manufacturers if the graders fall ill.

Stilton has to be made within Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Notts.

Blue Stilton is a highly complex cheese and the graders have many years of experience Nigel White, Stilton Cheese Makers' Association

The Stilton Cheese Makers' Association is hoping to secure the insurance cover on its experts n the run-up to the Christmas period as winter colds kick in and sales increase.

Nigel White, of the association, said: "The Stilton dairies produce Stilton all year round but obviously are particularly busy in the months just before Christmas.

"This summer, as the weather was so unpredictable and many of our graders were off with summer colds, we began to have genuine worries about what we would do to safeguard the quality of Blue Stilton should illness befall our graders in the crucial weeks and months to come.

"Blue Stilton is a highly complex cheese and the graders have many years of experience of determining the exact point at which a cheese is ready to leave the dairy.

"Without this expertise and with so few qualified graders to call upon, we really feel we have to safeguard ourselves in case of illness at this crucial time."

Protected by a European Designation of Origin, the cheese can only be made in six licensed dairies in the three counties.

A third of Stilton's annual sales are made in the run-up to Christmas, totalling up to 2,500 tons in the UK alone.