100 Years at Long Clawson Dairy - home of Stilton cheese production

100 Years at Long Clawson Dairy

1911

Thomas Hoe Stevenson ran his farm with two sisters who produced Stilton in a room next to the farmhouse.  Thomas Hoe and 11 other local farmers set up a Co-operative to sell liquid milk and Stilton cheese and purchased The Royal Oak empty pub in Long Clawson which is still the headquarters today.  Today 43 farms in Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire supply the dairy with 58 million litres of milk every year.

1920s

The telephone and electricity arrives at the dairy in difficult financial times, but the dairy recovered by 1929.

1930s

With three million people unemployed, times were hard again at the dairy.  The Stilton Cheese Makers’ Association was formed to lobby for regulation to protect the quality and origin of the cheese.

1940s

Again the dairy was in difficulties and in 1939, they were asked not to produce Stilton but remained in operation by converting into Cheddar cheese production, the chosen cheese for rations.

1950s

Stilton was back in fashion.  Inspired by books on food by Elizabeth David and Fanny Craddock, no dinning was complete without a cheese board, and no cheese board complete without Stilton.  Also during this decade, Long Clawson Dairy won awards for Best Stilton at the London Dairy Show in 1953.  Milk demand increased too and in 1960 the dairy sold 4,400 gallons a day compared to 40 gallons in 1940.

 

 

1960s

The launch of the first blended cheeses including White Stilton fruit blends.  The legal protection and certification trademark was established in the three counties of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.  It’s the only cheese with this level of protection.

1970s

Expansion to 200 employees delivering milk to 16,000 customers and producing 100,000 cheese a year.

1980s

The liquid milk market was tough as competition from supermarkets selling low-cost milk began.  Long Clawson Dairy decided to concentrate on cheese production and sold off the milk division.  They opened a new dairy at Harby in 1984, producing 325,000 cheeses per year and still winning awards.

1990s

This decade saw the creation of new products such as Paneer for the increasing Asian market.  The Product of Designation of Origin (PDO) was awarded to Stilton and it governs where Stilton cheese is made.

Present Day

The dairy at Long Clawson continues to thrive and innovate.  Investing in new buildings and winning 25 awards for Aged Leicestershire Red since 2006.  Smooth Blue as 3 Supreme Champion awards.  The dairy continues to be run by farmers – many are descendents of the original 12 families.  It now relies on 43 farms for milk to create a very special range of cheese.

History of Stilton Cheese - "The King of Cheese"

History of Stilton – how it all came about.

“Like so many types of food and commodities, Stilton developed – it was not invented, it did not appear overnight.  Today each of the six dairies producing Stilton cheese uses its own recipe – not one dairy produces Stilton cheese in exactly the same way as its competitors.”

 

In the book by Trevor Hickman “The History of Stilton Cheese”1995, Trevor explains that a cream cheese was being made in the parish of Wymondham, Leicestershire.  Many individuals living in farming communities in this area would make cheese from their surplus milk.  When it was offered for sale, it would have been given a variety of names.  However, a blue veined cream cheese made from cows’ milk was produced by farmers in Wymondham as soon as pastures were enclosed within the open-field system in the 18^th Century.

Undoubtedly the cheese we now recognize as Stilton was developed because of increased demand, most probably as a result of the development of road links throughout the country.  The most important highway to be developed was the Great North Road on which the town of Stilton had been a stopping point for centuries for travellers.  With the development of the coaching trade, not only was cheese carried on journeys to be eaten but also purchased for retail and consumption in the towns and cities that were the eventual destinations of the travellers.  So ‘the cheese of Stilton’ was created. Mrs Orton, (a farmer’s wife from Little Dalby) is claimed to have made the first Stilton cheeses in Leicestershire in 1730.

Stilton cheese is unique; it has its own distinctive taste and quality when it has reached maturity.  The size and shape of Stilton varied somewhat.  It is possible that Mrs Frances Pawlett of Wymondham, a cheese-maker of high repute, can be credited with applying the standards of the day, rationalizing shape, size and quality.

Mrs Pawlett set a standard, producing her own cheese and acting as “middleman”, and selected only the best of the other dairies’ cheeses for delivery to Stilton.  Many hostelries in the small town competed to sell the cheese.  Legend has it that Cooper Thornhill, the owner of The Bell, in association with Mrs Pawlett, sold the best cheese in the middle years of the 18^th century.  Until Cooper Thornhill became involved, it was also very much a seasonal trade, only being on offer when available.  When the arrival of the railways in the 1840s came, this altered the Stilton Cheese industry immediately.  The railway system allowed more of the London aristocracy to visit Melton Mowbray in support of the local hunts and once they had discovered this cheese, they promoted it to an enormous extent.  Railway wagons filled with Stilton cheese for London on a weekly basis.

Until the building of specialized dairies at the end of the 19^th century, it was always very localized.  Hundreds of farmers’ wives made Stilton with their surplus milk, often producing only one or two per day.  These would be sold in various markets especially at fairs in Melton Mowbray.  Eventually co-operatives were formed and specialist dairies were built, including the formation of Long Clawson Dairy in 1911 by Thomas Hoe Stevenson.

Tighten your belts, the bad times are coming!

After a very busy year, producing lots of lovely milk for Stilton Cheese production with a good price, above the cost of production, the tables have turned.  As from 1 November we are now only getting 27.5 pence per litre which is way below the cost of production on our farm.  With winter almost upon us, we're going to have to "tighten our belts" and look at cutting costs and don't spend on CapEx!

Our cows are looking wonderful and are still outside grazing in the fields everyday for at least another month!  We are feeding well made silage during the evenings when they are kept inside in the cubicle shed, which this year we've invested in some smart Cozy Cow Mattresses (CapEx #1).
At first they were reluctant to lie on the new mattresses but once we'd added some fresh wheat straw, they began to sniff and nibble the straw and slowly, gained confidence to have a go at lying on the mattresses!  Funny old things, cows?  Don't like change or upset to their routine!

Talking of upsetting the cows routine.  A few weeks ago the electric supply went off just before evening milking.  We phoned our supplier, who promised it would be on by 5pm!!! WHAT!!!  we've got a herd of cows to milk?????  Eventually, the power was restored only to stop half an hour later, so the units fell off the cows udders and we had to sort them out again into groups of those been milked, those half way through milking and those waiting to be milked!  It was very upsetting for our lovely laid back herd.  Not knowing why we want them back through the parlour AGAIN!  We eventually finished evening milking at 8pm and lost milk production by 100 litres the next day due to the disruption.  If only we could get our own generator? but that would mean spending on CapEx!

 

Lovely Summers Day with the herd!

 

 

Spring Turn Out at Last!

We have finally turned our cows out during the day, this weekend.  With the spring sunshine on their backs, it is always a joy to watch, as all our lady cows kick up their heels and race about the field, mooing to each other and excited to see fresh grass again. Milk production will be down a bit as a result!

Although we had the coldest night last night, with a hard frost first thing this morning.  But the sun always comes through and melts it all away by the time we finished morning milking.

We are two weeks away from our now annual TB testing of the whole herd.  So all our baby calves, yearling heifers and some dry cows are still inside the sheds.  Once we've done the test and the reading 4 days later, they will be wormed, vaccinated and turned out into fresh pasture for the summer.  They can't wait, nor can we!

On the look out for TWO new bulls.  Sadly, our first bull Mulberry is no longer required.  We have to sell him as the next lot of heifers need to be bulled this summer, are all his daughters!  We've been bull shopping this weekend, to see a Ayrshire breeder in Norfolk, who may let us know when one of his cows delivers a bull calf.  We may buy a very young bull calf and rear it on our farm ready for next year.  We still need two for this summer even though we've got Mulberry's replacement, Windfall on farm now.  It's very technical this breeding lark you know!

Just to catch up with the family.  Charlotte has finished working in Oz after six wonderful months and has moved to a large dairy farm (1300 cows) in North Island, New Zealand, where  she's working looking after children and horses for the farmer and his wife.  They are, of course, coming into Autumn and Winter months ahead.  They are a hunting family and are happy for Charlotte to hunt too.  She has her mount Max, a ex Show Jumper and very comfortable ride!  I've got to post out to her, her hunting jacket and boots!

Harry is away in Cheshire, still at Agricultural College.  He's home most weekends and works very hard when he is home.  Last weekend, he spread tons and tons of two year old well rotted manure over the silage fields, to fertilise them.  And again this weekend, he's muck carting from the yards at the farm, to the muckheap in the fields, so it can degrade and rot over the summer and hopefully, be spread before winter.

Our bag fertiliser has arrived too, 45 tonnes and we've also invested in a second hand fertiliser spinner for the tractor.  Harry and his granddad, are hoping to put that on next weekend.  It's all go, go, go.

So, as you can see, even though some of the stock are outside during the day, making life easier on the stocking front, there's so much more to do now that the ground has dried up and grass is starting to grow.

Only job for me to do now, is go out there and walk the fields, measuring the grass growth.  Someone's got to do it!

Farming Downunder!

G'day folks. My first blog from down under and first for 2014.  Today we're near Brisbane in Queensland and the forecast is 41 degrees no less!

I've been here for one week, visiting our daughter Charlotte and we're touring the Gold Coast up towards Cairns in the north. Yesterday we managed to visit a dairy farm and their 220 Holsteins. Even in this extreme heat of high summer, the relaxed cows are outside strip grazing grass and wander back to the shade of the barn where water sprinklers cool them down whilst waiting their turn to go through the robotic milking stalls.  They have four robots and the cows choose when to be milked with the average of 2.7 times in 24 hours.  We listened to the excellent Farmer Gregie explaining the process and his attention to cow welfare, cow comfort with the water mattress cubicles and rubber matting in top of the walkways, was evident everywhere. Due to milk price pressures, this forward thinking family now process all their milk (5000lts per day) on farm in the brand new milk bottling plant and distribute locally to outlets daily. This venture employs 12 people and markets its milk as '4 Real Milk' from the Scenic Rim.  As there are only about 450 dairy farmers left in the whole of Queensland, all their milk is mainly sold on the domestic market, leaving milk producers in Victoria and SA exporting milk products across the world. In fact all the milk products in the shops are mostly Australian with some imported cheeses including our own famous Stilton Cheese!

It was interesting hearing all the same economic problems we face at home, with the supermarkets taking much of the blame, but Farmer Gregie has the work/ life balance much better than my husband does as Farmer Gregie was just off in his new Jaguar to play a round of golf!

Although robots are doing the lions share of the milking it's not a labour free farm. A young cow was calving and still needed a hand, which delayed Farmer Gregie a little and the strip wire in the paddocks needed moving. Also the computers need constant adjustments but all in all the whole operation ran smoothly and stress free both for the cows and the farmer.  A great eye opener and of much interest to me.  

Most of the time, Gregie spent his time educating through farm visits, talks to groups and through local media, the benefits of real milk.  Pasteurised but not over processed.  This model was refreshing to see in a country of extremes!

Well done to Farmer Gregie!

To see for yourself, visit www.scenicrim4realmilk.com.au or Facebook.com/roboticdairy