Here’s a picture of our first trial at making our own butter. We’re using local cream and we’re exceptionally happy with the results. It’s tremendously tasty!

I’d like to say that we are going down this line to further our own organic credentials/using local suppliers etc which is true in part but this is also a result of economic necessity. The European milk shortage means that we were paying 90p per block at the start of the year and our suppliers are now charging 1.60 per block (it’s actually cheaper for us to use Ocado!). This would mean an extra £4,000 per year on the cost of butter for us. We don’t sell butter. We don’t want to “pass-on” this increase to our customers so we’ve entered the butter production market!

Each block now costs us around £1.00. So, still more than we were paying and obviously we have to find the time to make it but it’s curiously satisfying and actually tastes better so, success really!