A SOMERSET cheesemaker is celebrating a healthy start to the year with record sales of its half-fat cheese, Cheeky Cow.

Cricketer Farm, based at Nether Stowey, has sold 23,000 packs ofCheeky Cow cheese within a fortnight across the UK.

As one of the first dairy companies in the country to sign up to the Voluntary Dairy Code of Practice in 2012, it’s great news for the 30-strong group of independent dairy farmers who are supplying the firm, as well as the 70-strong workforce at Cricketer Farm headquarters.

Managing director Greg Parsons said: “The current disconnect between dairy buyers and suppliers, combined with global volatility of the milk market, has created a perfect storm that’s hitting British dairy farmers the hardest. 

“Long-term buyer-supplier relationships are fundamental to a healthy dairy sector and should, therefore, always be first priority for all parties in the supply chain. 

“Looking for short-term gains at the expense of our agricultural sector, with the knock-on effects to our nation’s food security is not acceptable and in no way sustainable.”

At the launch of Cheeky Cow, Mr Parsons challenged the country’s leading supermarkets to change the way they work with producers and suppliers. 

He said: “Supermarkets are too short-term focussed. 

“Growing health concerns and consumers’ heightened ethical principles are top of the agenda, which is good news for our country’s producers and farmers and gives us all hope that the supermarkets will adapt their model and respond well to such consumer pressure.

“But, if they do not, they risk distancing themselves further from their customers which, as we’ve seen recently, comes at an extremely high cost and is in the interest of no-one.”