County Down company Clandeboye Yoghurt has invested £2 million in a new creamery to help it quadruple production and grow sales in new markets.
The Bangor business, founded by the late Lady Dufferin in 2007, has built a new facility on the Clandeboye Estate and will move from its original incubator site at Ards Business Hub.
It will bring production closer to the estate’s farm from where it sources its milk from a herd of Holstein and Jersey cows and allow production to expand sharply.
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General Manager Bryan Boggs, who has been with the business since its inception, said the Newtownards site had provided the ideal starter site without the need for a long-term lease.
Since starting out 15 years ago with just two staff and daily production capacity of 300 litres of milk, the business now employs 20 people and processes 6,000 litres a day.
Mr Boggs said it had been a company dream to build a business on the estate, powered by green energy and using milk from its own herd.
“It had always been our dream to build a sustainable business on the Clandeboye Estate, powered by green energy, using milk from our own herd,” Bryan added.
“As a small start-up, we didn’t want to risk a long-term lease and the unit at Ards allowed us to trial the product. Plus, all the food production units are fully serviced so there was no additional investment in the site needed.”
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“Our close-knit team has played a hugely important role in this move and this new purpose-built factory will allow us to grow further. We are right on the parkland at Clandeboye and can see the cows that produce our milk out the window, so it’s a real farm to spoon journey,” he said.
Clandeboye Estate Yoghurt started in a single unit at the business hub with its first sales from a stall at St George’s Market. As it began to supply the Hastings Hotel Group and then all the major supermarkets in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it took an additional three units.
Now with the new creamery allowing for increased capacity, the company is looking into new markets, particularly in England, Scotland and Wales.
“Clandeboye Estate Yoghurt is one of Northern Ireland’s true food heroes,” Nichola Lockhart, CEO of Ards Business Hub, said. “They had a clear vision to create an artisan product and built their business through quality, hard work and dedication. Ards Business Hub is a social enterprise and our aim is to help businesses grow and flourish and we are delighted with the success of this company.”
The business was the idea of the late Lady Dufferin who hired Bryan, an experienced food technician, to create an artisan yoghurt using milk from her herd of pedigree Holstein and Jersey cows. After developing the process at Loughry College, Bryan took a unit at Ards Business Hub to start production and prove that there was a market for the locally made yogurt.