Somerset dairy opens new £10m production facility
Somerset dairy Wyke Farms has opened a new £10m production facility.
The new facility will allow the farm to produce premium Wyke Farms butter for the UK and global markets.
Almost half of the funding for the new facility came 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 the firm’s five-year plan for growth, underpinned by sustainably increasing volume and strategically targeting specific regions across the world.
The facility will see the company produce freshly churned premium butter with longer a shelf-life to allow for shipping to premium export markets, as well as driving a reduction in waste both in store and at home.
The dairy 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.
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 per cent last year.
Rich Clothier, managing director, third generation family member at Wyke Farms and Ivy Clothier’s Grandson, says: “The world butter market is worth nearly $20 billion and is predicted to grow by 50 per cent 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.”
Wyke Farms is focussed on traditional farmhouse butter recipes and plan to bring ‘Ivy’s Reserve Salted Farmhouse Butter’ to market later this year.
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.
