The EGCS AGM, English Guernsey Cattle Society, and Herd visits were held on the Isle of Wight on the 21st and 22nd of September.
21 members gathered at the Bluebells Coffee Shop at Briddlesford Farm as guests of the Griffin family before travelling to Queen Bower to the Isle of Wight Cheese Company established in 2006 by Richard Hodgson in Mike Reed’s farmyard.
Richard rents the Cheeseroom and Cold stores from Mike Reed and makes three different cheeses, Isle of Wight Blue, Isle of Wight soft and Galleybagger. The first two soft cheeses are made with pasteurised Guernsey milk and the Galleybagger is a Cheddar type made with unpasteurised Guernsey milk and is stored for between 4 and 7 months. Richard would like to extend the storage but such is the demand that he struggles to make enough cheese.
Richard started with just one 250 litre cheese vat but has recently added a second vat with 500 litre capacity and that allows for increased production but will require investment in extra storage space.
The Cheeses are predominantly sold on the Island but there is an increasing demand on the mainland but again supply is the limiting factor.
Richard explained the processes in great detail and answered all questions posed by the visitors and has a very good website which gives much greater information on the cheeses and where to buy them.
Mike Reed then took us around his adjoining dairy where he bottles milk for four local doorstep rounds and supplies both pasteurised and unpasteurised milk and meets the requirements of the enviromental health inspectorate by processing on alternate days.
The Isle of Wight is free of Tuberculosis but the herds are still subjected to the same testing regime and recently a “doubtful” was identified which led to all of the milk having to be pasteurised for a period whilst the animal was proven to be TB free, and when the unpasteurised sales resumed the publicity led to an increase in sales!
We were then able to view the milking herd of about 60 cows most of which are purebred Guernsey and are not milk recorded but also include some with an Ayrshire background but the majority of them would qualify as Supplementary cows. Unfortunately none of the Reed’s children are currently interersted in taking on the business and so he sees no advantage in becoming pedigree at present.
Lunch was then taken at the nearby Garlic Farm where the owner has developed a very good business adding value to Garlic but his main business is the mutiplication of seed stock for sale to other growers. Garlic is very susceptiple to disease and needs fresh ground each year, with 50 acres grown in 2010, and irrigation during the growing season and is thus an expensive crop to grow.
Chris Watson the retiring EGCS President had organised a dinner within the Bluebells Restaurant and local food including Isle of Wight cheeses and Briddlesford Sausages were included and then we were entertained by the “Farm Band” consisting of several members of the Griffin family and very good they were too.