Producers of the Italian hard cheese Grana Padano are taking legal action against the US soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful for a scene the cheese makers claim denigrated their product.

In an episode broadcast last year on the daytime drama series about a glamorous Los Angeles family, one of the main characters, security guard Charlie Webber, realises while cooking dinner that he accidentally bought Grana Padano instead of the Parmigiano-Reggiano parmesan.

“Oh no, I got Padano!” Charlie says, visibly disgusted. He then runs back to the store to buy Parmigiano-Reggiano. The two hard cheeses are both made through a natural ageing process and matured in temperature-controlled warehouses.

But Grana Padano is produced across a wider geographic area of the Po Valley plain and sells 50 per cent more wheels worldwide. Less matured Grana Padano cheese is often sold at a lower price.

True cheese lovers - Italians especially – are careful to distinguish the two, though they are often used interchangeably in recipes calling for grated parmesan.

“What disturbed us was the dramatic way the cheese was denigrated ... the actor reacted to it so negatively, almost as if he had poison in his hand,” said Stefano Berni, general director of the Grana Padano Consortium.