Recently, Compassion in World Farming released a map of the UK showing a proliferation of factory farms in the UK. From their research, they’ve found that ‘factory farming has taken over UK food production’ with around 70% of farm animals in the UK kept in factory farms, ‘where they spend their lives in overcrowded barns…
I was at Birmingham’s first coffee festival this weekend, to support Cotteswold Dairy who were the official milk sponsor for the event. This meant that they provided Pasture Promise free range milk for all of the coffee roasters and baristas to use over the two day festival. The UK has become a nation of coffee…
Throughout the month of June, the Sustainable Restaurant Association is running it’s Celebrate Local Producers Campaign, encouraging members to source more fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy from British suppliers. There’s lots of reasons why buying the cheapest produce can make financial sense when running a restaurant but your business doesn’t operate in isolation. Add the…
I went to the first Balance Festival held in London on Friday. A three day festival dedicated to health and fitness shows how big the industry has grown over the years and is still a growing in the UK. I attended the Health and Wellness Summit Friday morning, which included a series of talks about…
In the run up to the EU Referendum one topic that should have taken centre stage but seemed to be relegated to the understudy role was food and farming. A fact noticed by others including Professor Kevin Morgan of Cardiff University who said it had Cinderella status in a recent blog As an ecological as…
I came away from our first Free Range Dairy Network conference this year feeling very positive. Not only did we have about 70 can-do people attend the conference but we also had some fantastic news from Yeshna Mistry from Sustainability Restaurant Association. Their new sustainability rating includes points for members taking Pasture Promise free range…
We want to say a big thank you to Jamie Oliver and Jimmy Doherty as Friday Night Feast has been a gift that keeps on giving. They took our story of Free Range Dairy Network to a much larger audience and it really caught a spark with viewers who for years have seen our dairy…
This month is Sustainable Restaurant Association’s #coffeemadegood campaign which encourages coffee roasters, baristas and consumers to think about where the coffee has come from? They are also encouraging people to think about the milk too. A 6oz cappuccino will consist of 1oz of espresso and 5 oz of milk plus some froth. Milk plays an…
Free Range Dairy Network has been using the #notallmilkisthesame for a few months now and as we raise awareness of the work of Free Range Dairy Network, the clearer it becomes that indeed not all milk is the same. Within our farmers network we have farmers located from the Yorkshire Dales down to Cornwall, with…
The two main questions people ask when searching on the internet for us is ‘What is Free Range Dairy?’ and ‘Where can I buy it?’ Firstly, ‘What is Free Range Dairy?’ Free Range Dairy is a defined farming system founded on the production of milk from traditional dairy farms, where cows are free to graze…
I was recently asked on Instagram what is free range milk? There’s no recognised standards, so how can you call it free range? In lots of ways that’s true. Free Range Dairy Network is trailblazing in that we are working in collaboration with others from farmers to food agencies to bring what is an innovative…
Global Justice Now have organised events across the UK with farmers from Bangladesh to talk about Monsanto. You might have heard about CETA and TTIP, both trade agreements which could see profits put before people but you might not have heard about Monsanto and according to the presentation their ‘seed piracy’. The talk with food…
Free Range Dairy Network is a member of the Food Research Collaboration and I was pleased to attend the workshop looking at collaboration between civil society and academics recently. The workshop explored the barriers and challenges to collaborating and in my previous role as a campaigner I have plenty of experience of when collaboration works…
Free Range Dairy Network is a member of the Food Research Collaboration and I was pleased to attend the workshop looking at collaboration between civil society and academics recently. The workshop explored the barriers and challenges to collaborating and in my previous role as a campaigner I have plenty of experience of when collaboration works…
This week we ran our last Free Range Dairy event of the summer at Bar house farm in Gloucestershire. Jenni and Jerry along with their cows have been the stars of the events. Jenni making free range cakes and everything in between for lunches that people couldn’t resist after a walk around the farm, pictures…
Free Range Dairy Network is entering the film competition Picture This about what communities across the world are doing to help protect the environment. I was excited to make the film as although we talk about cow, consumers and farmers as our core messages, we believe we can make a positive environmental contribution to the…
The sun shone and the cows looked happy and content in the fields, if a little curious as we got the barn ready and fired up the tea urn. At 11am people started arriving from all over Yorkshire and Lancashire and soon we had quite a big crowd trying free range milk from Stephenson’s Dairy…
When we think of our countryside we always think of cows in fields. Cows have been part and parcel of our lives since we were children but they go back much further than that. They occupy a unique role in our history and have been domesticated since at least the early Neolithic age. Early Neolithic populations who domesticated cattle as well…
It was a gorgeous day and we had a great turn out. Neil, with help from farm dog Sonny, was there to sign people in and give them a name badge. We had about fifty people attend on the day, all catered for by Jenni, the farmer’s wife who put on a fantastic buffet with…
One year on for Stephenson’s Dairy and Free Range Dairy … I was at Cup North, part of Spin Manchester, this weekend helping Chris of Stephenson’s Dairy with his milk stand. Chris was also providing all the Free Range milk for the coffee roasters J Atkinson & Co. Ltd, Casa Expresso and Ancoats Coffee Co,…