Member Article

Yummy Yorkshire founder named as woman in tourism of the year

The co-founder of Huddersfield ice cream company Yummy Yorkshire, Louise Holmes, has beaten off stiff competition to win Woman in Tourism of the year at the 2014 Network She Foundation International Women’s Day Awards.

Winners were announced at the award ceremony held at De Vere St David’s Hotel near Chester on Friday 7 March.

The awards are held by the North West and Yorkshire networking organisation Network She and are now in their seventh year. Since their launch in 2008 the Network She Awards have become recognised as the platform to celebrate the success of women who mean business.

The event recognises and rewards the inspiring achievements of women in business who have succeeded and continue to succeed in their chosen field during such difficult, turbulent and unpredictable times.

This year’s awards were also the official launch of the new Network She Foundation Charity aimed at getting businesses to pool together their skills and resources to help charities and to develop woman and young people from across the country and beyond. All proceeds from this year’s event will go towards the benefit and development of woman and young people across the country and beyond.

Louise established Yummy Yorkshire together with her husband Jeremy in 2007 to diversify their main milk processing business and to enhance the value of milk from their herd. She is responsible for ice cream production and the development of new flavours as well as marketing, PR and administrative work for the company.

Initially just selling ice cream from their farm gates, Yummy Yorkshire now produces 35,500 litres of ice cream a year, supplying farm shops, restaurants and visitor attractions across the county. They also have their own dedicated ice cream parlour and coffee shop on the farm, which is open 7 days a week and offers an array of free-to-attend family events throughout the year.

Speaking about her award win Louise says: “It’s such an honour to receive this award and it’s testament to how far we have come from selling our ice cream from the farm gate to becoming a visitor attraction in our own right. I’m over the moon to have won.”

The event was hosted by motivational and inspirational speaker Kate Hardcastle, who was a winner of Network She’s Woman of Influence award at last year’s ceremony.

Founder and director of Network She Ruth Lloyd Williams said: “We are thrilled to be able to create a platform for women to be recognised and rewarded for their hard work and achievements. It never ceases to amaze me as to what women achieve especially when you read the inspirational stories of each of our nominees. Each year it becomes increasingly difficult for the judges to pick out just one winner because all of the women nominated are stars in their own right.

“The feedback we have had from those attending has been fantastic and we have already had sponsors pledging support for next year’s awards. We cannot thank our sponsors and supporters enough for helping to put the awards in such a high calibre and to embracing the new Foundation.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Yummy Yorkshire .