Wyke Farms facts for kids

Wyke Farms makes tasty cheese and butter in a place called Somerset, England. It's the biggest independent company in the United Kingdom that makes cheese. This means they are not owned by a larger corporation.

The Story of Wyke Farms

Starting with a Special Recipe

The Clothier family has been farming in Somerset for more than 200 years. The idea for Wyke Farms' famous cheese started with Ivy Clothier (1908-1987). She began making cheese as a fun hobby.

Ivy used milk from her husband's cows to create her first cheeses. Her special recipe quickly became popular in the local area. Soon, she even bought milk from other farms to keep up with demand. Ivy won many awards for her cheese, starting way back in 1952. Her original recipe is still used by Wyke Farms today!

Growing the Family Business

Ivy had two sons, James 'Jim' Clothier (1930-2002) and John Clothier (born 1943). John later became the Chairman of Wyke Farms. When John was just a young boy in 1947, his father, Tom Clothier (1906-1986), and his brother Jim started teaching him about the business side of farming.

Tom took John to markets, where he learned how to buy and sell animals. This was a very important skill for running a farm business. By the time John was 10 years old, he was already allowed to bid on, buy, and sell cattle and pigs all by himself!

From Farmhouse to Global Sales

In 1980, John Clothier started his own company called Wyke Farmhouse Cheddar. This was separate from his family's original farm, Tom Clothier and Sons. In 1992, the company name changed again to Wyke Farms. This new name fit better on the cheese packaging.

Today, Wyke Farms sells its cheese to over 150 countries around the world. The company earns more than £100 million each year. In June 2020, John Clothier retired as Chairman of Wyke Farms after working there for over 70 years. Paul Hardwick then took over the role of Chairman.

How Wyke Farms Makes Cheese and Butter

Milk from Somerset Cows

Wyke Farms is a family-run business that has grown a lot. With help from a group called UK Trade & Investment, they started selling their products to more than 160 countries. This international expansion began in 1997.

The cheese and butter are made partly with milk from cows that live in the beautiful Mendip Hills in Somerset. Wyke Farms has its own herd of 1,000 cows that produce milk. They also get milk from cows on other nearby farms.

In 2015, the company announced that they expected to sell four times as much cheese internationally by 2019. The farm currently manages over 1,700 acres of land. It is the largest independent cheese maker and milk processor in the UK, producing over 17,000 tonnes of cheddar cheese.

Powering the Farm with Waste

Wyke Farms is very focused on being environmentally friendly. Instead of using electricity from the national power grid, they use waste from their cows and pigs to power the farm! They built a special plant called a biogas plant, which took five years to finish. This plant turns animal waste into energy.

The Super Smeller

Wyke Farms even has a special employee named Diane Cox. Her job is to smell and taste cheese! She is so good at it that her employers pay £25,000 each year to insure her nose. Diane can tell which cheese will become a high-quality vintage cheddar just by smelling it. She tastes much more cheese for her work than a typical adult in Britain would!

Expanding for More Cheese

In 2019, Wyke Farms announced plans to make their dairy even bigger. The new dairy was designed to be super efficient. It would help them increase their cheese production from 17,000 tonnes to 40,000 tonnes of cheese each year.

For the financial year ending March 31, 2021, Wyke Farms made a profit of £4.1 million before taxes. This was £900,000 more than the year before. They also had total sales of £114.92 million.