On the 16th of April History Group 2 visited the historic Dewlay cheese factory.
We arrived to coffee/tea and biscuits, and then a presentation by Mike the current co owner. The company was started in 1954 by his grandfather. Dewlay is a play on words for the French du lait (milk). They concentrate on four main cheeses, the milk all coming from local suppliers. The cheese is sold at a variety of supermarkets, Sainsbury’s taste the difference, MS and Aldi. Surprisingly their biggest contract is with Home Bargains. It started as a really small order, but was so successful they wanted more, a lot more, arriving from head office in a helicopter to seal the deal!
Mike said he had a small but dedicated team committed to the production of first class cheeses. Despite Covid, Brexit and difficulties with recruiting younger members of staff to replace these retiring the family company still continues to produce its wonderful cheeses.
We then moved onto the viewing gallery, where Mike explained the cheese making process to us. It was a fascinating mixture of mechanisation, and hard physical labour.
We then returned to the lecture room, where a delicious selection of cheeses were laid out for us to sample. After sampling these delicacies we made our way to the wonderful shop, where you could purchase the cheeses and any accompaniment to cheese you could think of. A perfect end to a perfect morning.
So don’t forget – get yourselves to Home Bargains as soon as possible.
