Milk Link success at British Cheese Awards and Frome Cheese Show
Milk Link, the UK’s largest cheese manufacturer and leading dairy cooperative, achieved an exceptional set of results at last Friday’s British Cheese Awards with its Llandyrnog Creamery being awarded the prestigious Dougal Campbell Trophy for Best Welsh Cheese.
British Cheese Awards
In total Milk Link’s creameries won 25 awards. For Lockerbie, the mild cheddar won silver and bronze; and the mature cheddar won one bronze award. Taw Valley won a silver and two bronze awards for its mild cheddar; two silvers and a bronze award for its Churnton brand; the Red Leicester won a silver award; the double Gloucester won a silver; and the extra mature special cheddar won a bronze award. Llandyrnog Creamery, which was awarded the Dougal Campbell Trophy for Best Welsh Cheddar, won a gold and a bronze for its mild cheddar; a silver award for its organic cheddar; a bronze award each for its mature cheddar, Export Vintage Cheddar and Red Leicester; and the Double Gloucester won a gold award. For Reece’s Creamery, the Red Cheshire won a gold and a silver award; the Cheshire and Acid Lancashire each won gold awards; and the Wensleydale won a silver. The Tuxford & Tebbutt Creamery was awarded a silver for its Stilton.
Frome Cheese Awards
The wins at The British Cheese Awards follow on from an excellent set of results at the Frome Show earlier in the month. The creameries won a total of 21 awards at the show with the highlights including Taw Valley being named Champion in the Best Creamery Cheddar and Best Territorial classes. The creamery also won a gold and a silver award for its medium cheddar; a silver and bronze for its mature cheddar; a silver for both the vintage cheddar and extra mature cheddar; a gold and bronze award for the Red Leicester; a silver and bronze for its reduced fat cheddar; and a bronze award for its organic cheddar. The Creamery was also awarded a gold in the class of Cheese for export in Commercial Packaging. Lockerbie was awarded a gold for its unsalted butter; a silver award for its half fat cheese; and a bronze for its mature cheddar. The Tuxford & Tebbutt creamery produced an excellent set of results being named Reserve Champion in the Best Blue Cheese class; and being awarded a gold award for its whole blue stilton and a bronze in the Open Blue Cheese class.
Neil Kennedy, Chief Executive of Milk Link commented on the results: "We are absolutely delighted that the excellence of our cheeses and butters has been recognised at the highly regarded British Cheese Awards and the Frome Show, especially as so many of our Creameries have been recognised. This is a testament to the exceptionally high quality of our products and the dedication and talent of our workforce. We are thrilled to build on the success we have already had in 2009 with these new awards."
Milk Link produces a range of branded cheeses and butters, including Tickler, the fabulous extra-mature cheddar produced in the heart of Devon; The Red One, the really remarkable Red Leicester; Lockerbie Cheddar and Butter, unique products with a special kick and "a wee bit of bite"; the Cadog range of bilingually-branded cheeses; and Moo Milk, the extended shelf life milk which comes as full-fat, semi-skimmed, one %, skimmed and with different flavours.
The company manufactures over 20 varieties of cheddars, Blue Stilton’s and British regional cheeses for the retail, food service and ingredients sectors and employs over 1,000 staff across five cheese and dairy processing facilities and its consumer packing facility at Oswestry, Shropshire.
