Lunch is a 2 day trade show for café, coffee shop and the food to go sector. This year there was a common theme running it through it I’ve never seen before and that was sustainability. From how they source their ingredients, to food waste and energy usage, even to the packaging, everyone was talking…
Listen to the Podcast here. The Passenger Shed at Bristol Temple Meads railway station was the venue for the first ever Bristol Coffee Festival, earlier this month and we were delighted to play a key part, as milk sponsors, along with Cotteswold Dairy. In its first year, the Bristol Coffee Festival created its own unique…
We are delighted to be Official Milk Sponsors of the first ever Bristol Coffee Festival, which is being held in the Passenger Shed, at Bristol Temple Meads Station, on the 7th & 8th of September. Described by the organisers as “a caffeine-fuelled celebration of the best the city has to offer”, the festival will…
For the first time Neil and I ran a stall at the Great Yorkshire Show. It was great to be in Yorkshire as this is where we first started getting Pasture Promise assured free range milk to the market. Back in 2014, we sat around a table with farmers, Dales Dairies and Stephenson’s Dairy to…
Congratulations to Free Range Dairy Network members Brian and Liz McNab-Jones, on winning Family Farming Business of the Year at last night’s Western Daily Press Food & Farming Awards. Brian and Liz produce fantastic cheese from their herd of free range cows, under their Godsell’s Cheese label and they also supply Pasture Promise free range…
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…
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…
The first Countryfile Live event took place at Blenheim Palace from the 4th to the 7th August this year and joined free range milk suppliers, Cotteswold Dairy, on their stand for a couple of days. In recent years, some have been critical of BBC Countryfile for its lack of coverage of British food and farming, but…
It is quite likely that, in the wake of the work we have done to promote traditional, seasonally grazed dairy farms and the wonderful milk they produce, others will begin to label milk as ‘free range’, reassuring consumers that cows have “access to grazing” for much of the year. However, in many instances, this may…
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…
Whilst hundreds of farmers gather in London on Wednesday March 23rd, to protest at further milk price cuts, the dairy cows belonging to the Hobbs family at Barhouse Farm in a small village, near Gloucester, will be turned out to grass for the summer months ahead, quite possibly for the last time. We want…
Last weekend I drove up to Manchester to attend Cup North at the Victoria Warehouse. It was a fascinating event bringing together coffee roasters, baristas, coffee machine suppliers and coffee connoisseurs from all over the country. There were films about the origins of coffee, ‘cupping’ competitions and barista demonstrations, all engulfed in a heady aroma of fresh…
Free Range Dairy is celebrating Cow Appreciation Day, to say thank you to all the cows that provide us with fresh, nutritious milk that is used by almost every household in Britain. Today there are around 1.8 million dairy cows on British farms and we hope you will join us in showing your appreciation for…
Since the middle of November 2014 we have run twelve meetings for farmers around the country – from Cumbria to Cornwall. Thanks to all those who came along, listened, asked questions and put forward their ideas – it has been time well spent for us. It is quite evident from the dozens of feedback forms…
We are still running a number of Free Range Dairy meetings for farmers around the country to explain our objectives, outline standards for free range milk production and provide details of our strategy for getting free range milk to market. There is growing interest in the opportunity to distinguish and brand milk from cows that…
I know everyone is busy getting ready for Christmas now but I just want to update you with details of meetings we are holding for farmers in the New Year. We have lots to talk about – progress with establishing producer standards, our feasibility study and some very interesting consumer research carried out as part…
Thank you to all who came along to the Free Range Dairy farmer meetings in Penrith, Garstang and Nantwich last week. It is really encouraging to see the interest in what we are trying to do and the feedback on our standards and strategy for getting free range milk to the market is invaluable. I…
A week ago I attended a local meeting arranged by Farmers for Action (FFA) at which David Handley highlighted the need for the British dairy industry to stop promoting increased milk output without first securing markets for that extra milk. An estimated 200 dairy farmers, concerned about the recent downward spiral in milk prices, were…
When I set Free Range Dairy in 2011, it was largely born out of my frustration at the lack of value in British milk and the constant struggle for farmers to achieve a fair reward for what they produced. What started as movement to allow farmers who graze their cows to distinguish themselves from intensive…
Over the past few months dairy farmers have been forced to accept a series of milk price cuts totalling almost 5 pence a litre. For a typical family farm with 150 cows, producing 1 million litres of milk, that amounts to a reduction in revenue of £45,000 a year. In many instances, all of…