Wyke Farms facts for kids
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|
| Industry | Dairy farming |
|---|---|
| Founder | John Clothier |
| Headquarters | Wyke Champflower, Somerset,
England
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| Products | Cheese and butter |
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Production output
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18,000 tonnes of cheddar |
| Revenue | £149.5million |
|
Operating income
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£10.9million |
| £10.48million | |
| Total assets | £83.44million |
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Number of employees
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276 |
Wyke Farms is a company in Somerset, England, that makes delicious cheese and butter. It's the biggest independent cheese maker in the United Kingdom. Being "independent" means they are a family-owned business and not part of a larger company.
Contents
The Story of Wyke Farms: How It Started
The Clothier family has been farming in Somerset for more than 200 years! The special recipe for their cheese was first made by Ivy Clothier (1908-1987). She started making cheese as a fun hobby, using milk from her husband's cows.
Soon, Ivy's cheese became very popular in the local area. She even started buying milk from other farms to make more. Ivy won many awards for her amazing cheese, with the first one in 1952. Guess what? Her original recipe is still used today!
Ivy had two sons, James 'Jim' Clothier and John Clothier. John later became the Chairman of Wyke Farms. When John was just a boy in 1947, his father, Tom Clothier, and his brother Jim taught him about the business side of farming. Tom took John to markets where he learned how to buy and sell. By the time John was 10 years old, he was already allowed to buy and sell cattle and pigs!
In 1980, John Clothier started his own company called Wyke Farmhouse Cheddar. Later, in 1992, the name changed to Wyke Farms because it fit better on the packaging. Today, Wyke Farms sells its cheese to over 150 countries around the world! In June 2020, John Clothier retired after working at the farm for more than 70 years. Paul Hardwick then took over as Chairman.
How Wyke Farms Makes Its Products
Wyke Farms is a family-run business that sells its products to over 160 countries. They started selling internationally in 1997 with help from UK Trade & Investment. The cheese and butter are made using milk from cows that graze in the beautiful Mendip Hills in Somerset.
The farm has a herd of 1,000 cows that produce milk. They also get milk from cows on other nearby farms. Wyke Farms is the largest independent cheese maker and milk processor in the UK. They produce over 17,000 tonnes of cheddar cheese each year!
Using Green Energy
Wyke Farms is very eco-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 farm waste into clean energy.
The Super Smeller: Diane Cox
Wyke Farms has a very special employee named Diane Cox. Her job is to smell and taste the cheese! She is so good at it that her employers pay £25,000 a year to insure her nose. Diane can tell which cheese will become a high-quality vintage cheddar. She tastes much more cheese for her work than a typical person eats in their daily life!
Future Plans and Growth
In 2019, Wyke Farms announced exciting plans to make their dairy even bigger. The new dairy will be super efficient. It will help them increase cheese production from 17,000 tonnes to a huge 40,000 tonnes of cheese every year!
Wyke Farms is also doing well financially. For the year ending March 31, 2021, they made a profit of £4.1 million. This was £900,000 more than the year before! Their total sales, called turnover, reached £114.92 million.
