Here’s what your coffee owes to the careful practices of places like Cumbria’s Dolphenby Farm
Image: Andy Commins/Daily Mirror)
“I love mornings,” says 36-year-old dairy farmer Jonny Slack of Dolphenby Farm in Cumbria, where he looks after some 500 cows.
“On a normal day, it’s a five o’clock start, and the first job is always to milk the cows and make sure they’re all fed and happy. That takes until about 8am, and then we’ll go and grab some breakfast.”
Dolphenby supplies milk for Nestlé’s Nescafé range of frothy coffees, which are produced just 20 miles down the road at its Dalston factory.
The secret to helping cows produce high-quality milk lies in high-quality grass and soil, Jonny explains.
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Image:
Andy Commins/Daily Mirror)
“One thing we’re really good at in Cumbria is growing grass, and we let our cows graze on it for as long in the year as we can.”
Jonny and his co-manager on the farm, Robert Craig, credit much of their success to their 21-year relationship with Nestlé and First Milk, a British farmer-owned dairy co-operative.
“The relationship between First Milk and Nestlé is unique,” says Robert. “It’s a real partnership, and it’s really well funded. They have been helping us to move in a regenerative direction.”
Robert explains that, in recent years, Dolphenby has been especially focused on soil health and the biodiversity in it, relying less on chemical fertilisers.
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“I think regenerative farming is so important,” adds Jonny. “The whole cycle is important to us – farming alongside nature, looking after the soil, which then looks after the cows and looks after the people.
“The cows have been here on and off for hundreds of years. They’ve shaped the local landscape, really.
“We talk about locally produced food. Well, here, we’re locally producing food for our cows to locally produce milk for the nation.”
While Robert comes from a long line of farmers (“I’m probably the fifth or sixth generation”), Jonny is unusual in the industry in not coming from a farming family – although it looks like he’s building a farming dynasty of his own.
Starting out as a cowman aged 16, Jonny worked his way up to become a stakeholder in Dolphenby, where he now lives with his wife, Lucy, and their three-year-old daughter, Neave.
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Image:
Andy Commins/Daily Mirror)
“There’s no better place for a child to grow up,” Jonny says. “My daughter has just got a couple of pet sheep for her birthday, and she loves feeding the calves, playing in mud puddles and whatever else.”
Lucy has a full-time job off the farm, but Jonny says he couldn’t do what he does without her.
“She is always there for help and advice,” he says. “Farming is a family business. It’s not nine to five – everybody has to be on board with it.”
So, the next time you’re sipping your morning Nescafé Latte, you can do so in the knowledge that the milk in it comes from right here in the UK – and, equally importantly, from healthy cows grazed on nutrient-rich soil.
