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…
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I was delighted to receive the award for Outstanding Contribution to Farming at the 2017 Western Daily Press Food & Farming Awards, which were held on Tuesday evening (9th May). It was a great pleasure to get to shake the hand of Gloucester and England rugby legend Phil Vickery upon receiving my award too. I…
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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…
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There hasn’t been much in the news lately about cuts in milk prices or the blockading of supermarket distribution centres by angry farmers. That’s because over the last six months there has been a steady rise in farm gate prices, following a significant drop in production on farms. Total UK milk production was 770 million…
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By Helen Lambert, an animal welfare scientist who is globally renowned for her expertise on animal sentience and her research into measuring cattle emotions. Helen works as a free-lance consultant to support charities, industry and universities with insight and research into animal welfare and sentience. For more information please visit her website Asking cows what they…
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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…
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Well. It seems that the milk revolution that we have ignited is rapidly spreading, with more and more people beginning to understand that not all milk is the same. Every week there is news and debate about free range milk that seems to be driving a retailers and dairy companies to hurriedly piece together some…
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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…
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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…
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By Robert Newton, a Free Range Dairy Farmer. We were very excited in January 2016 when Cotteswold Dairy, our milk buyer for nearly 20 years, confirmed that they were to start selling Pasture Promise Free Range milk. It was a big commitment to make as the milk has to be totally segregated which involves a…
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We are absolutely delighted to have received so much interest in Pasture Promise free range milk, following our recent appearance on Jamie and Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast . People everywhere, are demanding to know that the milk they buy comes from cows free to graze in fields, for at least 180 days and nights a…
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If you were one of the many people watching Jamie & Jimmy’s Friday Night Feast on Channel 4, last Friday, you would have seen the feature on free range milk and the Pasture Promise logo. We are so grateful to Jamie and Jimmy for taking up our cause as a ‘Food Fight’ and helping us…
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I’ve been lucky, very lucky. I have lived in some beautiful parts of the English countryside, worked with some inspiring people and had the privilege of enjoying a close relationship with nature all of my life. There are few jobs that can give one the sense of connection to the world around us like dairy…
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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…
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Tuesday 7th March 2017, Stafford Beacon Conference Centre, Stafford ST18 0GB The value in traditional, pasture-based dairy farms that produce great tasting milk and enrich our countryside, is being lost as the pressure to deliver large volumes of cheap, commodity milk steers more producers towards an intensive regime. Those running family farms, where cows enjoy…
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2016 has been a really busy year for Free Range Dairy Network. Having established a collaboration between dairy farmers supplying milk to Dales Dairies and Stephenson’s Dairy in Lancashire, the first free range milk reached the market in May 2015. Since then we have been working to grow our network and offer more people the…
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By Jenni Hobbs, The Hobbs family at Barhouse Farm. I can’t believe its December, the year has flown by as it usually does, but this has been an unexpected year with many changes good and bad. The year started with a meeting organised by Free Range Dairy Network at Cotteswold Dairy, the dairy we supply…
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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…
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When I began talking about the concept of free range milk back in 2011, I was looking for a way to help people understand the role dairy farmers play in defining the quality of the milk we buy and to halt the loss of traditional grazing herds from the British countryside. I could see that…
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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…
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