Wensleydale Creamery plans restructuring

Wensleydale Creamery is contemplating a significant restructuring of its operations to concentrate cheese production at one site in Hawes, Wensleydale; and blending, packing and storage at its other site in at Kirkby Malzeard, near Ripon.

Both sites currently produce cheese, said md David Hartley. “We have won a large amount of new business over the last few months and we have been taking a serious look at how the business is structured.”
Volumes at Christmas are up 50% on last year, he added. “We have picked up new blended cheese business with the Co-op Group following its acquisition of Somerfield, plus more business from Morrisons, Sainsbury and Waitrose. We’ve also started to export product to the US.”
The privately owned firm, which is on course to turn over about £20-£21M this year, is also confident of securing PDO (protected designation of origin) status for ‘Yorkshire Wensleydale’ next year, said Hartley.
While he had considered applying for PDO status for Wensleydale itself, this would have opened up a can of worms given the large number of UK firms producing Wensleydale cheese from outside the Yorkshire area, he observed.
“Consumer research suggests that while shoppers do not really believe that Cheddar or Red Leicester is made in Cheddar or Leicester anymore, they do believe that Wensleydale and other smaller regional cheeses come from the areas after which they are named. But rather than going down the PDO route for all of Wensleydale cheese, we have decided instead to create a ‘Making Provenance Matter’ campaign and introduce a ‘Stamp of Authenticity’, which highlights that our Wensleydale cheese is made in Wensleydale.”
The firm, which has recently invested £300,000 on a new blended cheese-packing line, planned to invest “significantly more” in restructuring in the future as it consolidated cheese making at one site and conducted all other activities at its second site, said Hartley.
Milk prices had been on a rollercoaster ride over the last couple of years, peaking in 2007/8, dropping off in early 2009 and then picking up again rapidly lately, he said. “Packaging, distribution and energy costs are also still very high.”