Partner Article

Dairy farm secures funding to continue expansion

A GROWING Durham dairy has secured £207,000 to safeguard jobs and meet the demands of the North East’s dairy industry.

Rock Farm Dairy has received £207,000 from the Rural Development Programme for England (RDPE) managed by One North East, to modernise the infrastructure and complement the improvements made last year to cope with increased demand following the closure of the Dairy Farmers of Britain (DFoB) at Blaydon.

Improvements to take capacity from 9,000 litres per hour to 30,000 litres per hour through funding of £80,000 from RDPE last summer, resulted in a growth in business, a five-fold increased annual turnover and the creation of another 56 jobs. This second round of funding will ensure a successful and viable future for the dairy safeguarding all the newly created jobs.

Adrian Sherwood, RDPE manager at One North East, said: “Rock Farm Dairy stepped in to bridge the gap when the Blaydon dairy closed at very short notice last year and successfully grew its business, employed more people and retained an important supply chain in the region.

“The first round of funding was always on the premise that a future application would be needed to make the rest of the wider dairy operation more efficient and effective for the longer term. This project is a vital development to stabilise and cement the rapid development of a dairy that has worked hard to ensure that North East dairy farmers retain a customer base.”

Rock Farm Dairy is owned by the Gregory family who have been involved in producing and delivering milk for over 100 years from the farm near Wheatley Hill. After starting from humble beginnings the business has grown significantly into a modern local dairy, providing a doorstep delivery service in County Durham as well as supplying milk to schools, hospitals, prisons and catering outlets.

John Gregory, managing director at Rock Farm Dairy, said: “Following the closure at Blaydon, Rock Farm needed to increase its milk intake significantly but limited resources made it difficult to continue this on a permanent basis.

“All of these new improvements are needed to back up the additional production facilities developed last year and will safeguard the jobs we have so far created. We are very grateful for the continued support through the RDPE programme to help us continue to grow and nurture our family business which we feel passionately about and which creates economic benefits for the North East.”

Funding from RDPE will help further expansion at Rock Farm Dairy incorporating new storage facilities for bottle caps as well as increasing the tank storage of raw and pasteruised milk.

A second pasteurising plant and a new area for glass bottled milk production will help to increase capacity for new orders. Following the expansion, the electricity supply was insufficient to meet demand so a new sub-station will secure power supplies in the foreseeable future.

The Rural Development Programme for England 2007-2013 is jointly funded by Defra and the European Union, with the aim of delivering targeted support to rural businesses and communities.

Richard Ellison, regional director of the NFU, added: “Rock Farm Dairy and other local dairies played an important part in minimising the impact of the collapse of Dairy Farmers of Britain. It’s good to see them continuing to go from strength to strength, supported by the RDPE programme.

“Without this cash injection important developments in the North East dairy sector would be very few and far between.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .