Wyke Farms seeks more milk producers to join ‘export revolution’

Somerset dairy processor, Wyke Farms is recruiting new producers to add an additional 25m litres of direct milk supply.

The processor, is looking for producers within a 50-mile radius of its Bruton dairy, covering the counties of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Devon and Dorset.

Wyke cited an expanding international export customer base as the reason behind the ramp up in production.

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“The big growth is coming from the big EU and world economies: the US, France, Germany, Spain, Italy – but it’s the general growth across all regions that is pushing our need to make more cheese,” said Wyke managing director Rich Clothier.

 “We are trading indirectly into 160 regions and part of the challenge is where to focus, where to protect IP and which languages do we focus on,” he added.

About 70% of Wyke’s exports go into the EU, but Mr Clothier identified the changing eating habits and emerging middle classes of China and India as markets of large potential – especially for British products.

“The world population will rise from 7 billion to about 9 billion over the next 30 years and 300 million Indians will join the middle classes in the next 15 years,” said Mr Clothier.

“By 2030 the average Chinese person is likely to be wealthier than the average American.

“All of these people will want to eat more quality Western products such as added value cheeses and fine wines and they particularly want produce from the UK.

“If your milk goes into our cheese, you will be part of this revolution,” he said.

Mr Clothier added that only by joining and excelling in world trade can we build stability into the dairy sector.