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Wyke Farms Ltd is a family run company based in the heart of the Somerset cheddar-making region.  The art of traditional cheese making will never be lost on the Somerset farm where the Clothier family have been making cheddar in Somerset since 1861.Today, Wyke Farms is one of the largest independent cheese makers and milk processors in the UK producing over 13000 tonnes of cheddar per year to the same award winning 150-year-old recipe.

News Facts

  • Wyke Farms is one of the UK’s largest independent cheese producers and milk processors, producing over 13,000 tonnes of cheddar per year to the same award winning recipe.
  • Wyke Farms has been producing its award-winning cheddar for over a century and has grown to become one of the largest family-owned cheese makers in Britain.
  • The Wyke Farms brand is the 4th largest brand in the Cheddar category and the only independent company in the top 10 cheese brands with retail sales of over £60 million.
  • Wyke remains a truly traditional family business. Ivy’s grandsons Richard and Tom now run the cheese making operations with their father John, whilst her other two Grandsons David and Roger run the family dairy farming operations. The four grandchildren share Ivy’s passion for cheese making where flavour, texture and taste are paramount. They believe that this attention to detail is the reason that their cheese has won more awards at national cheese shows than any other.

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  • Wyke Farms introduce ‘5 pillar’ scheme to incentivise farmers to i ...

Wyke Farms

03 Nov 2021

Wyke Farms introduce ‘5 pillar’ scheme to incentivise farmers to introduce more sustainable practice

Press Release

Aim of scheme is ‘Net Positive Farming’

Bruton, Somerset; 3rd November 2021: Wyke Farms, the UK’s largest independent cheddar producers and producers of renewable energy, announce details of their new ‘5 pillar’ scheme called ‘Net Positive Farming’ which is designed to encourage and financially reward dairy farmers who show evidence of on-farm sustainable practise.

Somerset based Wyke Farms started working on the ‘Net Positive Farming’ project earlier this year and recently shared results of an independent study showing that carbon emissions on their farm (and the supplier farms included in their pilot group) were at levels 55% lower than the global average of 2.5 kgCO₂(e)/kgFPCM (see details here).  The ‘5 pillar scheme’ is the second phase of the ‘Net Positive Farming’ project and has been created to bring about real-life industry change.

 

In addition to incentivising best environmental practise, as part of their ‘Green Deal’ with farmers Wyke Farms will be co-funding projects with their farmers that deliver tangible environmental benefits such as energy management surveys with plans and soil sampling. Wyke Farms believe that soil health is critical to capturing carbon and bridging farming to a net zero future.

With immediate effect farmers supplying milk to Wyke Farms are incentivised to introduce, or improve existing, sustainable farming practices in the following five areas (pillars). Once the criteria has been met they can achieve an extra 0.2 pence per litre of milk for each; meaning an additional 1ppl if addressing all five.

  • Feed Management
  • Soil & Land Management
  • Manure Management
  • Herd Management
  • Energy Management

To qualify for the 0.2ppl in each pillar farmers will need to meet three out of five modules in the first four pillars and two out of the four in ‘Energy Management’. The pillars were identified in consultation with the Milking Group and each pillar has its own objective that have been designed by Wyke Farms in collaboration with Promar International.

The purpose of the Pillar Scheme is to affect change and ultimately achieve net positive farming. The standards are pitched at a level that drives continuous improvement.

Richard Clothier, Managing Director and third generation family member at Wyke Farms, said: “We called the project ‘Net-Positive Farming’ because for me this means that the environment and the community have to be better for having farming there than they would be without it. This means we have to create a net-positive impact in all that we do, so this project strives to wholistically address GHG emissions, soil health and biodiversity. Our industry is facing an existential threat and we have to change. We are on a journey together, together we will improve our knowledge base and strive to be better environmentalists.

The financial incentive is an important part of the project, but equally important is the knowledge share and building knowledge of environmental best practise with suppliers. We are identifying best practise beacon farmers in each of the pillars who demonstrate what ‘good’ looks like, so this knowledge can be shared with the rest of the pool and the industry can move forward,” Clothier added.

Wyke Farms is the first Dairy company to use this approach. The sustainability bonus is built into the headline price paid to the farmers and the new ‘5 pillar’ scheme replaces the old Wyke Sustainability bonus of 0.2ppl for any milk supplier that adopted sustainability into their working practice.

Wyke Farms’ cheese and butter is made with the milk from their cows grazing the lush pastures of the Mendip Hills in the centre of the Cheddar making region in Somerset.

Wyke Farms branded products are available in selected Lidl stores and in Southwest UK ASDA and Tesco stores. All products are available online at: www.wykefarms.com/shop

For more information, please contact: paloma@connectedpr.com.

 

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