On 21st May 2019, our General Manager, Paul and Marketing Manager, Kayleigh, took a trip over to Holmes Chapel to visit one of our valued customers, Bidlea Dairy. We’ve shared various posts about their project in the past, but this is our most recent update, but also gives you a better idea of how their building (and business) is shaping itself.
Ray Brown is the owner of the Bidlea Herd, along with his wife, Gill, but once the new Bidlea Dairy building was complete and their pasteurizing equipment started coming in, it has been Ray’s Son and Daughter-in-Law, Adam & Becky, who have taken everything on board to get the business started.
From the outside we see a magnificent building; brick base with stunning timber cladding, loading & personnel doors, plus their fun branding. Once you walk in, you’re greeted with 2 large milk tanks to your left which store all the raw milk. These are pumped from across the road where the cows are milked each day.
Paul & Kayleigh then got themselves into their new outfit; pristine white wellington boots, hair nets and white lab coats before entering the room where all the magic happens (fortunately for them, we didn’t get a picture…) – this is to ensure no dirty clothes or shoes enter the room where all the dairy products are handled.
Adam explained what each equipment does throughout every step of achieving the final product, going into detail about temperatures, quantities and more (we’ll keep that their secret)! Adam then went on to show the team how a bottle is filled, sealed, branded, dated and then packaged. We’re expecting a video soon, but if you follow us on Facebook, this will be the first place we share it!
The mezzanine floor you can see above all the downstairs equipment, is what we thought would be a challenge to begin with when designing this building. When you have heavy duty pasteurizing equipment, as well as people standing on a mezzanine floor, there was a lot our team had to consider to ensure the strength of the structure was enough – and we’re pleased to say it turned out brilliantly!
The mezzanine floor now holds various tanks for whole milk, semi-skimmed, cream and then the final two tanks aren’t in use yet, but we know a little something that you might find exciting…they’re starting to produce flavoured milk too! Unfortunately we were unable to sample the goods, as we’re sure they will be very tasty, but we did drive back to the office with several cartons of whole and semi-skimmed milk to make a tray-load of brews with.
The team even got to see Bidlea Dairy’s new refrigerated van which you may spot on the road around Cheshire. They’re now stocked in various local farm shops in the likes of Holmes Chapel, Congleton, Leek and more. Have you spotted their milk cartons yet?
