Why the UK could be sending more cheese and pastry to Japan

Foods like Cornish pasties and Staffordshire cheese are all about to become protected foods in Japan.

Protected foods can only be sold if they are made in the place where they came from - and in the traditional way that they are made.

For example, shops can only call something a Cornish pasty if it is made in Cornwall, in a specific way.

But why do we have protected foods, and how do the rules work? Let's find out!

The term for protecting certain foods is Geographical Indication. People working in businesses sometimes call them GIs.

It basically means that if you sell food, you can only call it by the GI if it's made in that area. It's usually because the food has some importance to the area - for example if it's got a lot of local history, or if a town became famous for selling a certain food.

So you might have heard of the Cornish pasty - well you can only sell something as a Cornish pasty if it has come from Cornwall.

The government has agreed a plan for selling foods like Cornish pasties in Japan - where it says food from the UK is very popular.

With the new rules, if a company in Japan wanted to sell Cornish Pasties, they would have to get them made in the UK and sent over. By doing this, the government says it will help traditional food businesses to keep making their local specialities.

There's a big list of foods from the UK on the list. These include Anglesey Sea Salt, Staffordshire Cheese, Traditional Cumberland Sausage and Yorkshire Wensleydale.

There's also specific types of meat that are only from certain places in the UK - like Welsh Beef or West Country Lamb.