Cheshire farmers crowned Wiseman champions

Cheshire farmers Stephen and Isobel Moore of Byley Hall Farm, Middlewich, Cheshire, are celebrating having been crowned champions at the annual Robert Wiseman Dairies Milk Quality Awards.

Beating off competition from over 1000 dairy farms across the country, they collected their award from Wiseman Managing Director, Billy Keane at the awards at the Forest of Arden Hotel on Wednesday 30th November.

This year the awards were divided into two categories to take account of the scale of the production on the farms across the Wiseman Milk Group. With the top prize, Byley Hall Farm were the overall winners with the runners up from the below 2 million litres per annum category being Bill and May Ford from Stoney Law Farm near Keele in Staffordshire and from the category for larger farms were brothers Bill and Andrew Higgins from Wilderley Hall Farm near Shrewsbury.

The awards are decided on the basis of milk quality performance across the year including scores for bactoscan, somatic cell counts, protein and butterfat levels and for the first time the farms carbon score was also factored in.

Pete Nicholson, Milk Procurement Director at Wiseman commented:

’The Milk Quality Awards are all about celebrating and rewarding excellence amongst the Wiseman Milk Group. Competition, as always, was fierce amongst all the members but Stephen and Isobel are very deserving winners of the top award with their herd generating some exceptional production figures this past year.’

Stephen Moore from the winning farm, Byley Hall Farm, said:

’Winning the milk quality award has come as something of a surprise but we are absolutely delighted that our hard work has been recognised with this title. To come out as the best farm amongst over 1000 members of the Wiseman Milk Group is something we are extremely proud of.’