Cheeseboard owner Jenny Gane with Lady Venetia Fuller and Paul Castle of the Neston Park Farm Shop, who will be taking over the Bradford shop next month

AFTER 18 years at the helm the owner of one of Bradford on Avon's most popular food shops is retiring.

Jenny Gane, 63, set up The Cheeseboard in Silver Street in 1990 offering fine local, farmhouse and specialist cheeses. She started working with food when she was 16 doing domestic science at Trowbridge College.

When her husband's parents retired from Monkton Farleigh Post Office she took it over and ran it until 1976 when she moved to the Dairy Deli in Silver Street.

When that closed she decided to go it alone and set up The Cheeseboard.

The business has gone from strength to strength and expanded to supplying hams, bacon, chutneys and preserves and biscuits. It was voted one of the best cheese shops in Britain in 2000 by the UK Cheese Guild and in 2005 won the Taste of the West Best Local Food Retail Outlet award.

Mrs Gane said: "It was a difficult decision to decide to retire, it took about six months, but I felt it was right.

"After 47 years working it was time to retire and let the business move on to the next generation."

She retires on May 9 but will continue working with food as a judge for the Great Taste Awards and the World Cheese Awards.

The Cheeseboard will be in capable hands as it has been taken over by the owners of Neston Park Farm Shop, near Corsham.

8:00am Friday 2nd May 2008

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