A CHEESE maker suffered a £515,000 drop in sales after being linked to an E.coli outbreak which saw a three-year-old girl die, a court has heard.

Errington Cheese owner Selina Cairns said her family’s firm had been hit after the incident in August 2016 where the young girl died and others fell ill.

A range of the company’s products are made from unpasteurised milk and environmental workers seized batches of their Lanark Blue and Corra Linn after the outbreak.

Mrs Cairns, 38, said production on the family farm in Carnwath, Lanarkshire, dropped from 50 tonnes to 20 tonnes in the wake of the outbreak.

She also said in the year before the outbreak Errington made sales of £600,000 but last year saw sales plummet by £515,000 to just £85,000.

The firm is battling South Lanarkshire Council over health and safety standards at the production plant.

A civil hearing at Hamilton Sheriff Court heard Mrs Cairns questioned about the family business by her father and company founder, Humphrey Errington, who is representing himself in court.

She said: “We used to make 50 tonnes of cheese a year, that was with both cow and sheep’s milk. We employed full-time staff, part-time staff and in August 2016 we employed about 12 people but after that we stopped milking and people lost jobs.

“We had geared up to make the same as always but ended up making 20 tonnes instead, and we stopped the cow’s milk entirely.”

The hearing continues.