The UK’s largest independent cheese producer Wyke Farms has opened a new £10m butter dairy.
The Somerset-based business, which is run by the Clothier family in Bruton, said the new facility would produce butter with a longer shelf-life, allowing for shipping to premium export markets. The company said it planned to bring its ‘Ivy’s Reserve Salted Farmhouse Butter’ product - billed as the world’s first carbon neutral butter - to market in the second quarter of the current financial year.
Part of the brand’s five-year growth plan, the expansion of Wyke Farms dairy volume output was supported by a £480,000 grant from the Rural Development Programme for England, jointly funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.
Managing director Richard Clothier, a third generation cheesemaker at Wyke Farms, said: “The world butter market is worth nearly $20bn (£16.5bn) 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.”
It comes after Wyke Farms saw overseas sales of its cheese and butter increase to £30m in its most recent financial year, a quarter of its total turnover. The company posted a marginally higher profit of £3.4m, despite a year it said was “defined” by inflated operating costs.
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