In the early 1990’s brothers Billy and Geoff Austin and their wives Julie and Sandra diversified their dairy farm to incorporate a small processing plant.
Upper Houses Farm had been a dairy farm for generations. In 1991 we bought our first of three milk rounds which was the beginning of the processing venture.
In 1992 due to constant increases in bottled milk prices we bought our first processing and filling equipment. This step was taken as no increases in milk prices were passed on to us as dairy farmers.
The initial capacity of the plant was 1800 ltr/hr increased to 2700ltr/hr with the purchase of a larger cream separator. In 1998, capacity was further increased by upgrading the plant with larger processing equipment, this took production up to 5500 ltr/hr. By the millennium the decision was made to purchase a larger capacity poly bottle filling line, the same time it was decided to focus all our efforts on milk processing and we sold the dairy herd and shortly after the milk rounds.
The latest upgrade began in 2002 with the installation of two filling lines, 1 glass bottle line and 1 poly bottle filling line. The farm buildings were converted from agricultural to industrial use in close cooperation with the local building inspectors and environmental health officers. Previously cattle facilities became a modern filling hall with refrigeration facilities and undercover parking for refrigerated vehicles.
In 2005 we started collecting raw milk direct from local farms using our own fleet of tankers. Currently we have 13 farms that we collect daily.
Lanchester Dairies is the largest independent dairy in the North East processing annually in excess of 20 million litres. We have a broad customer base covering milk men, local shops, national supermarkets, food manufacturers, cafes, pubs, restaurants and nursing homes. Lanchester Dairies is also the Asda hub in the North East, supplying local products to Asda stores.
Our facilities are accredited to BRC Standards (British Retail Consortium) achieving the highest level of standards by EFSIS. |
