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.
Grand funded dairy to produce freshly churned premium butter for UK & global markets.
Bruton, Somerset 7th March 2023: Wyke Farms, Somerset’s prizewinning Cheddar and Butter makers and producer of renewable energy, announce the start-up of their new butter dairy facility this week.
Somerset based Wyke Farms have invested £10 million into the state of art dairy, £480,000 of which has been supported by grant funding from the Rural Development Programme for England, which is jointly funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The grant funding paid for plant and equipment in the new dairy.
The dairy expansion project is part of Wyke Farms’ five-year plan for growth, underpinned by sustainably increasing volume and strategically targeting specific regions worldwide. The company will now produce freshly churned premium butter with longer shelf-lives allowing for shipping to premium export markets, as well as driving a reduction in waste both in store and at home.
Wyke Farms remain focused on traditional farmhouse butter recipes and plan to bring ‘Ivy’s Reserve Salted Farmhouse Butter’ to market in Q2 2023. Produced from whey cream and premium sea salt, Ivy’s will be the world’s first carbon neutral butter and will join Ivy’s Reserve Cheddar as a top tier offering for UK and export. Conventional and organic butters will also be crafted in the dairy.
Rich Clothier, Managing Director, third generation family member at Wyke Farms and Ivy Clothier’s Grandson, says: “The world butter market is worth nearly US$20 bn and is predicted to grow by 50% by 2027. Increasingly, people across the world are looking for premium dairy products with provenance and history – butter is no exception. This investment will allow us to offer our multi-award-winning Somerset single-churned artisan butters, with longer shelf life, into regions across the world.”
The butter dairy facility is built to Ivy Clothier’s founding principles of producing the best-in-class quality, combined with an industry leading respect for the environment. The development is both energy and water efficient and the investment will build a sustainable long-term future and sufficient infrastructure for servicing increased sales of award-winning Butter in both the UK and export markets; crucial now, as Wyke Farms continues to benefit from substantial growth in total export sales both to the EU and the rest of the world; up almost 30% ye 2022.
Wyke Farms’ products are made on the family farm in the centre of the Cheddar making region in Somerset. In the UK Ivy’s Reserve Cheddar is available in Tesco stores nationwide and Wyke Farms cheddar and butter are available in selected Lidl, Morrisons and Southwest ASDA and Tesco stores as well as 167 export markets. All products are available online at: www.wykefarms.com/shop
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Tags: Farmhouse Butter, Somerset, Wyke Farms