When Richard Clothier's grandmother, Ivy, started making award-winning cheeses in the heart of Somerset more than a century ago, it is inconceivable that she could have imagined what Wyke Farms would be like today.
While the family brand is still proudly steeped in tradition and heritage, Wyke Farms md Clothier has a refreshing approach to high-end technology and automation – he loves it. And he's willing to splash the cash on it too, because it provides the efficiencies that enable the firm to produce the 300t of cheese a week that make it punch above its weight against much bigger competitors.
Speaking at the cheesemaking site in Bruton, Clothier extols the virtues of recent investments that have helped drive what was an £8M brand in 2005 to a £72M one today.
"While we are running a traditional recipe and there is a great emphasis on our history, at the same time we know we have to be a cutting-edge manufacturing business as well. At our Wincanton site there is probably the best invested packing plant for Cheddar in the whole of Europe," he says.
The site is packed with high-tech gear, including intelligent cutters, robotic bag removing, high-speed packing lines that place the cheese into zip pack formats. Then there's automatic packing of shelf-ready packs on to the pallets.
"It's a hell of a lot different to how it was done 10 years ago," Clothier adds. "Then we were cutting 5kg blocks by hand and putting them into blocks and sealing them manually, whereas now they can pack 20t of cheese a shift on each of the two lines."
Without the courage to invest in new equipment and embrace technology, he has no doubt the firm would lag behind its rivals and be unable to meet the needs of the major multiples.
"If you deal with the likes of Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury, when they go on to promotion they need the volume quickly so we have to be able to react to that, " he explains.
"So we are proud of our tradition but we invested in state-of-the-art equipment because we have to, because we are competing with the likes of Dairy Crest and the Irish Dairy Board."
And it appears the approach is working. Not only does the packaging plant receive visits from cheese firms in the UK and abroad who are eager to see it in action, it has also helped Wyke Farms become the third largest Cheddar brand in the county, behind Cathedral City, which is owned by Dairy Crest and Pilgrims Choice, which is owned by the Irish Dairy Board.
Just behind them is McLelland's Seriously Strong, which is owned by Lactilis and then Lake District, which is owned by the First Milk co-operative.
Super Light success
Clothier's journey to md has seen him take in a wide range of roles after studying agriculture, dairy science and management – but he admits it was always the science-side of the business that appealed to him most.
Ironically, it was his success in this area that led him to spending more time selling and promoting the brand.
"In 2000 we developed a product (now branded Super Light, formerly Leskol) that took the animal fats out of the cheese and replaced it with a healthy vegetable oil so it was a cheese that could be eaten by people with cardiovascular diseases, diabetics and healthy eaters," he says.
With the new product requiring a more "technical sale", it was down to him to pitch the product to retailers and drive demand – a task no doubt made easier by his enthusiastic nature and passion for his products.
"We used the point of difference on Super Light to get the listings in the major multiples, because up until that point we were only strong in the independent and impulse sector.
"Since then we've been able to get the Wyke brand in and it is growing double digit every year," Clothier adds. This is something that is no mean feat, especially on the back of a high-profile public spat with Morrisons last year after the supermarket delisted his products, instantly slashing 40,000 unit sales a week.
It was his initial sales experience that stoked his interest in branding and marketing and gave the business the boost it needed to really take off.
Since then the focus has very much been on highlighting what Clothier claims are the "points of difference" between his brand and its competitors – not least the fact that you'll rarely see him in a suit and tie.
"We're farmhouse cheesemakers from Somerset. We're different and we celebrate that difference," he says. "Visiting us is not like visiting Dairy Crest," he says.
"While we invest heavily in the brand, we like to think we do things a little bit differently. Cathedral City, for example, put a load of their budget into TV advertising, whereas we put a load of our budget into tastings. We see that as an intimate way to get across our flavour, to start with, and then also the story behind it to pick up loyal customers."
One of the best ways to increase relationships with consumers, adds Clothier, is via social media, even if he admits that he was a sceptic at first.
"To be honest, I thought it was a load of b*****ks," he jokes, adding it is now the company's main marketing tool. "I've really come around to it now, though, because the roll-out of 3G and smartphones has changed the whole ball game," he reveals.
"It is an area where smaller businesses can punch above their weight. We see ourselves as a challenger brand, so we have got a challenger mentality."
Free cheese Friday
The Wyke Farm Facebook pages have more than 21,000 'likes' and its regular 'free cheese Friday' giveaway – where followers have to like the post to win some products – regularly gets 1,000 'likes' each week. Its Twitter pages have 4,500 followers.
But Clothier says it's not so much the numbers that matter, it's more about the level of engagement.
"We work hard to make sure that we are a character brand because then it is much easier for people to interact with us online."
Recently Clothier took the levels of interaction one step further. In a first for the dairy industry, a rebranding exercise included input from the "online community".
Facebook followers were invited to choose between several versions of a new look, but many of them went far further than this, chipping in with font and colour scheme suggestions of their own.
It is a paradoxical sign of the times that extensive automation and use of social media are driving success based on public desires for foods that have a traditional ethos and clear provenance.
Understandably, Clothier is determined to press on with this dual approach as he seeks to secure another year of double digit growth.
"We have to focus on provenance and the horsemeat scandal has really focused on this and will drive all our creative work. To not lever that point of difference would be a bad thing," he maintains. That will be aligned with maintaining a focus on efficiencies at the packaging plant while also launching a range of additive cheeses and a smoked Cheddar.
Looking further ahead, the Bruton cheesemaking site could be in line for a redevelopment.
"If we carry on the way we are we are probably only two years away from having to rebuild it because we'll have run out of capacity," Clothier says.
After the sustained growth he's witnessed over the past eight years, it's probably unwise to bet against that happening.
Are retailers running riot over manufacturers? Find out what Clothier makes of retailer relationships and the Groceries Code Adjudicator in our exclusive video.