Yester Farm Dairies is run by husband and wife team Simon and Jackie McCreery, operating alongside the family farm at Yester Mains near Haddington – just South East of Edinburgh. We began processing and retailing the farm’s fresh milk in 2003 but for the last 5 years we have focussing on been making our own artisan range of soft cheeses, yoghurts, cultured creams and mozzarella. Here Jackie & Simon reflect on a year like no other they’ve experienced in business.
Since we started trading, 2020 has been our most challenging year so far – and there have been many challenges! We know we are very much not alone in this story and we are luckier than others that we are still here to tell the tale.
LIFE IN LOCKDOWN
When the first covid lockdown was announced on 20th March closing bars and restaurants, our sales literally disappeared overnight. Around 80% of our business was to the food service sector so instead of orders coming in we were taking calls with cancellation after cancellation. It’s not an exaggeration to say we spent that first weekend in despair. Having invested everything we had in the business over recent years, we literally had no reserves to call upon. We had to immediately put some staff off on unpaid leave and batten down the hatches to cut costs wherever we could. The furlough scheme was a Godsend for those first few weeks as we knew that staff would be covered.
Cows obviously don’t know there’s a pandemic and just keep milking, so with nowhere for the milk to go, we adjusted their feed ration and dropped the milking from three times to twice a day to try to manage the volume of milk.
We realised we had to pivot our business (a new term we’d never used before Covid unless in the context of Ross and his sofa on an episode of Friends!) towards our retail products and put mozzarella into frozen storage. By the end of the following week we had an online shop up and running, thanks to the talents of our sister-in-law Arabella. We started to promote online sales for local “click and collect” service initially. However we quickly realised that there were many people shielding and not able to get out to collect food, so we then moved to home deliveries for East Lothian.
This brought its own challenges in getting effective ordering systems and route planning set up quickly but after a few glitches, we rolled out to Midlothian and Edinburgh. We were soon delivering to around 120 households per day and added an extra delivery van and we began couriering orders throughout the UK. Many other local companies were also looking at home deliveries so we contacted everyone we could think of with a view to collaborating in order to reach as many households as possible. It was so positive to see how many folks were willing to support local companies and that gave us a boost to keep going.
We added to our range over the weeks and are now stocking many other great East Lothian brands. Our online shop is definitely here to stay for as long as folks keep ordering!
We also want to thank everyone who ordered takeaway pizzas from your favourite pizza outlets in and around Edinburgh as chances are it was Yester mozzarella you were enjoying. We are thankful for the innovative and progressive restaurant owners who could have shut up shop but who also managed to “pivot” to takeaway and delivery.
…AND THE GOOD NEWS!
2020 hasn’t been all bad though. Many of our people live here on the farm and we were delighted to welcome little Eveline to the Yester Family – a new baby daughter for Nick our Senior Cheesemaker and his partner Georgiana and a niece for John who works on the farm too. Our own little lockdown baby!
This year has also enabled us to connect with our customers in a way that we hadn’t before, particularly through social media. We issued the first of what will be regular newsblogs and engaged with people on a scale that was new to us but so positive and encouraging. We have always really believed in connecting people with their food because we think that people will appreciate its value if they know exactly the work that goes into producing it and the people who have made it. In the midst of a pandemic we were proud to be one of a number of smaller, local producers and distributors who were able to service our local communities and we have found throughout the pandemic that people really value good food and drink and stand behind their local producers. The pandemic has also enabled us to collaborate with many like-minded folks and to reach more consumers directly, but we know will only be here for the future if we maintain our quality and value for money. We have some of the best farming conditions in the UK here in East Lothian and we can make great produce with a great story to tell and we want to get better at doing that.
MORE GOOD NEWS…
The end of 2020 also brought us two awards with which we were absolutely delighted – recognition from the prestigious Great Taste Awards from the Guild of Fine Foods and winning Local Producer of the Year from the East and Midlothian Chamber of Commerce.
Getting a two star Great Taste Award for our signature Cottage Cheese was a real morale boost for everyone. Products that have won Great Taste Awards are so recognisable on the shelf with their black and gold logo and we know consumers will choose them over other products because it is a real stamp of quality, so it’s hugely important to us in trying to build our brand to have won this.
We set out to make a cottage cheese that rolled the clock back 50 years and create a chunky, creamy cheese that redefined this product. We were totally delighted that the judges seemed to totally “get” this and they said:-
This looks to be a really rich cottage cheese. It delivers immediately in the mouth: creamy, rich, milky, lactic acidity with pleasing pieces of cheese. This has lifted cottage cheese to a new dimension”
This is cottage cheese with a wow factor – a genuinely exciting version of a product which does not usually tickle the tastebuds. It is a creamy, delicious cheese which delivers really rich flavours. It is a proper old fashioned cheese, which has been made with care and time. The chunky texture and the mouth-feel are lovely.
Our customers seem to agree and we’ve had some great feedback from many, many lovely people who have taken the time to drop us a note or post on social media – it really does mean a lot. We can’t thank all of our customers enough for their continued support.
AND FINALLY…
We want to finish by paying tribute to our staff who have adapted and been flexible when we needed them to be and have kept up their team spirit through uncertain times. As critical workers, producing food, they have worked hard throughout the pandemic when, at times, they may have feared for their jobs as well as the health and wellbeing of their families.
The latest lockdown has definitely been a blow for all of us but we are looking forward to 2021 with optimism and confidence. We have to keep innovating so we are planning to bring some new products to the market in 2021 and we will have refreshed packaging for the New Year to help us stand out and tell our story on the retail shelf.
We are also excited to be launching a new look website early in the New Year which will make buying our produce quicker and easier…
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2021!
Simon & Jackie McCreery
#COMEON2021 #LETSBEHAVINGYOU
