The journey of Treleague Dairy began in 2015.
The farm was selling milk in bulk at such a low price per litre that we were actually losing money, and it was hearrtbreaking to see that that the milk was being sold in supermarkets for significantly more that we were paid, considering all the hard work that was going into the farming business. The position worstened in 2016 with the farm gate milk price reaching a low of 17.41 pence per litre. Even bottled water was being sold for significantly more in the shops.
We thought, surely we can do better than this. Why can’t we sell our milk direct to the public, and the concept of starting a Dairy was sown in our minds.
Nigel really wanted to do something to help out the farm business which was struggling at that milk price, and so he took the steps to set the company up and got Judith interested in the idea also. Judith was very keen to be involved with the milk round and shop and Nigel wanted to get the milk processing up and running.
Right from the start we wanted to put our milk in glass bottles, as we wanted to cut down on waste and re-use them. Not only is it more sustainable, we think it just tastes so much better in glass, and it is nicer to use.
It all began in the farmhouse kitchen with a 15 litre pasteuriser (Pictured left).
It took 2 hours to produce only 15 litres of milk, which is very labour intensive, and crazy in comparison to how many litres we do today. But it was a start.
At this point Claire started to help out with processing, and our first production team was in place.
We then needed to think about how we were going to deliver it to the public.
Judith came across a wonderful 1971 Morris Minor Van which quickly became our Milk Round Van. She could be seen twice a week around Ruan Minor dropping off bottles of milk, always accompanied by her loyal companion Daisy.
Nigel also got interested in skimming the milk to try and produce clotted cream. Nigel has very fond memories of the lovely clotted cream made by his Nana on her Aga during his childhood, and he was determined to make something similar. His “Nana” and was Margaret’s Mum. Nigel bought our first cream separator, and started working on our recipe for Clotted Cream, as well as semi-skimmed and skimmed milk.
We then decided to open up our first shop on the farm. It was a quaint, little shed that Judith decorated it in a lovely cow print design, which has since become our signature look!
After the summer we quickly realised the tiny shed was too small to serve customers and also have stock. Not only that, with the weather getting much damper it would not be suitable over the winter months. We designed and ordered a bespoke replacement.
In late Autumn Farm Shop 2 (our present-day shop) arrived. It is very much larger, and was ideal for us to grow into.
We naturally decorated it with our signature black and white cow print of Judith’s design.
Interestingly the footprint of this new shop was almost the same as the old 5-a-side milking parlour which existed on exactly the same spot.
We enjoyed our first social evening at Christmas that year, inviting the village for mulled wine and mince pies and the school choir from Landewednack singing carols and xmas songs.
Around this time, we had clearly out grown the tiny pasteurisers (we had 2 on the go all the time) and invested in one large 150L machine and we took a small corner of the bulk tank room to create a proper pasteurisation room, lined in plastic and purpose built. With the extra milk we were able to attend the Farmers Market in Helston regularly and we grew our business to supply hampers locally.
We were also able to expand our milk round to other surrounding villages but the Morris Minor Van could not cope with the scale, so we retired it and got an insulated van to match the farm shop.
2018 had an exciting start with an unusual snowfall, exceptional for down here. We attended the Porthleven Food Festival and had an exciting visit from the film crew and celebrities of “5 Go Caravanning” the TV show, who were looking for the perfect cream tea.
Then 2020 arrived, the world came to a halt and suddenly local shops were extremely popular! We had never been so busy – we were able to continue serving customers from our doorway and deliver many many food hampers to people’s doorsteps.
We were lucky to be able to source products such as flour that were unavailable in supermarkets. The market for local fishermen to land their fish suddenly collapsed and they were desperate for somewhere to sell their fish. Our cream tea shed became a fishmongers overnight and we were able to sell their crabs, lobsters and white fish from here. This was really popular and people were delighted to have somewhere nearby to buy it.
With the loss of our cream tea shed as a fishmongers, we looked around for a catering van to enable us to do hot food. People were not able to travel much or eat out, so we decided to try evening meals and cooked breakfasts. It wasn’t long before it was transformed into the cow-print “Croust Wagon”.
Factoid – “Croust” is Cornish for: a mid-morning break for a snack.
With our ever-growing milk production it was proving really difficult to get it all done from a tiny room. We worked on a new room within part of an agricultural shed and welcomed the arrival of 2 new 250 litre pasteurisers.
In September of this year, we were finally able to move into the room and we are now able to produce 500L of milk at the same time.
We are continuing to develop our product lines and will share news of these as and when – we are so grateful for the support from all our customers over these eventful years – your support has allowed us to grow and help to secure the future of our farm for generations to come.
Farm selling our own fresh pasteurised milk, ice cream, butter, double cream, clotted cream, bread & cakes, and other local produce including veg, meat and Cornish gifts.
