Cows

We have spent a great many years testing, trialling and tweaking to create the best ingredients for our unique milk recipe.

World-class cheese requires world-class milk. 

Back in the '50s and '60s our herd would have been made up of high-yielding Holstein cows – famous for providing lots of milk. But nowadays the focus is definitely on quality, not quantity.

We manage the herd carefully, never pushing them above their breeding limits and ensuring they enjoy a long and happy life in our fields. Our cows even get 60 days' maternity leave prior to calving, when they're not milked at all, to give them time to relax and recuperate.

Newly born calves are often born out in the fields – and all of them are out in fresh paddocks within a month.

With a vast swathe of land, including luscious rich Devon pasture, it makes total sense for us to make use of what is right on our doorstep. With a focus on grass-grazing and allowing our animals to spend the maximum time outside, or 'out wintering', finding a suitably hardy breed that gives us the right yield and protein percentage has been a complex puzzle. So complex that in fact we don't exclusively produce one specific breed...

Our herd is made up of a variety of traditional dairy stock; each breed has been specifically chosen to create the ultimate hybrid – the Quicke's cow. 

10% Montbeliarde

33% Scandinavian Red

2% Brown Swiss

33% Kiwi Holstein

9% Freisian

10% Kiwi Freisian

3% Jersey