New Butter Dairy Facility Opens!
This week we are delighted to announce the commencement of production in our new butter dairy facility, producing freshly churned premium Wyke Farms butter for the UK and global markets.
This marks a significant investment of £10million into the state-of-the-art production facility, £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 our five-year plan for growth, underpinned by sustainably increasing volume and strategically targeting specific regions worldwide. The facility allows us to produce freshly churned premium butter with longer shelf-lives to allow for shipping to premium export markets, as well as driving a reduction in waste both in store and at home.
Built to Ivy Clothier’s founding principles of producing the best-in-class quality, combined with an industry leading respect for the environment, 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 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.
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 US$ 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.”
We are focussed 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.
