In Cyprus Halloumi war, an ex-pilot champions the old ways

On a cold winter evening in a car park in the Cypriot capital Nicosia, queues are already forming before former airline pilot Pantelis Panteli arrives in a small van to sell his produce.

After being made redundant following the closure of Cyprus Airways in 2013, Panteli decided to try his hand at cheese-making. He hasn't looked back.

Now the newcomer has become an unlikely bastion of an old tradition amid a bitter legal battle about the ingredients of Cyprus's prized Halloumi. Should it be made from cow's milk - which now forms the bulk of exports and has a mellower taste - or from tarter goat and ewe milk, which some purists swear by?

Panteli makes Halloumi exclusively from ewe's milk - even though some dairy farmers on the Mediterranean island say that method is not viable.

"Nobody is making the real thing anymore, and that is our aim," he told Reuters...